Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This session is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference.“ Isaac Rogers was a well-known US Civil War veteran and deputy marshal who met his demise on a platform in Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, on April 21, 1897—but who was he outside of those titles and that singular event? This is the story of how oral history, traditional genealogy, and genetic genealogy collided to reveal the presenter’s ties to Rogers and their shared family origins and connections to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. This intimate and rarely seen account of a Five Tribes Freedmen family will share what can be found once ancestors are located on the Dawes Rolls and applications and how the information within those documents lead to mapping out a family history spanning more than ten generations. Sewell-Smith will discuss the use of additional record sets such as the US Civil War pension files, Cherokee rolls, state and federal census records, Freedmen rolls such as the Wallace and Kern-Clifton Rolls, congressional records, newspapers, and more.
Nicka Sewell-Smith is a professional genealogist and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is a charter member of the Sons and Daughters of the Middle Passage, host of BlackProGen LIVE, and serves on the Oklahoma Freedmen Collective leadership team. Sewell-Smith is also on the faculty of the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute.
This session is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference.“ Isaac Rogers was a well-known US Civil War veteran and deputy marshal who met his demise on a platform in Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, on April 21, 1897—but who was he outside of those titles and that singular event? This is the story of how oral history, traditional genealogy, and genetic genealogy collided to reveal the presenter’s ties to Rogers and their shared family origins and connections to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. This intimate and rarely seen account of a Five Tribes Freedmen family will share what can be found once ancestors are located on the Dawes Rolls and applications and how the information within those documents lead to mapping out a family history spanning more than ten generations. Sewell-Smith will discuss the use of additional record sets such as the US Civil War pension files, Cherokee rolls, state and federal census records, Freedmen rolls such as the Wallace and Kern-Clifton Rolls, congressional records, newspapers, and more.
Nicka Sewell-Smith is a professional genealogist and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is a charter member of the Sons and Daughters of the Middle Passage, host of BlackProGen LIVE, and serves on the Oklahoma Freedmen Collective leadership team. Sewell-Smith is also on the faculty of the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute.
