Was dad part Cherokee?
I always thought my dad looked like he was American Indian and he even said he was part Cherokee. As a child I was utterly captivated by this.
People who meet me can see I clearly have Scandinavian heritage, but ask about the high cheekbones. I tell them I have Cherokee in my background.
I asked daddy where the name Smith had come from and if he was Cherokee and he had told me that a few generations back they had dropped the Indian name for Smith.
John Smith was not his biological father. If there was Cherokee in his background it had nothing to do with my dad. If it existed it had to have come from the Honeycutts or Crabtrees.
I began to suspect I had always been wrong when I saw a picture of dad’s grandfather from the Honeycutt side as a younger man. He had thick black hair, a narrow face, high cheek bones, a strong nose and what I feel is an uncanny resemblance to my dad.
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So far I have found no clues in either the Honeycutt or Crabtree lineage of any American Indian link, although names can be deceiving. But I am willing to go with the similarity between Hugh Smith and a young James Michael Honeycutt. There is too, too much resemblance to ignore.
Maybe there is Cherokee somewhere I haven’t been able to track done, but I feel my work is done here.
If newer generations of Smiths wish to track down the Cherokee I would love to hear about it, but for now I am happy with what I have found and will focus on filling in the details of my own family history and let others dig deeper if they have the interest.