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Guion Miller Rolls 1908-1910
If you get lucky, your ancestors put in for a Millers claim but if they didn't have any ancestors that didn't remove voluntarily then the request would be rejected. These rejected applications were still kept, and are still a good source of information. On typical Millers applications you can find wonderful research information such as the names of all their children, their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and brothers and sisters. Sometimes you can find out their Indian names and when they were born and died, if the claimants knew.
With the Guion Miller Rolls, the Dawes stipulations did not play in, so there are lots of ancestors who never received Dawes roll numbers who did receive this payment for the emigrant Cherokees. However, it is important to note that even if your ancestors were on the Miller Rolls, the Dawes numbers are still important. See Lesson #2.
You'll be interested in the index to these microfilms, Bob Blankenship's Guion Miller Plus, where you'll find your ancestor's Miller Number (which is part of the census card number) with the listing of Miller's Application Number, which is the actual enrollment paper. Then, if the individual also appears on the Dawes Roll, Bob cross-indexes that ancestor's listing by including the Dawes Number.
You'll also want to see Vital Information from the Guion Miller Roll: Eastern Cherokee Court of Claims, 1906-1909 - Billy Dubois Edgington and Carol Anne Buswell, M.A. Heritage Books CD #0878. I find the search engine is cumbersome, until I realized the publisher, Heritage Books basically scanned the images of each page of the book. You can search by a last name, but then you have to click through the pages to find the references to your ancestor.
The publisher states: "In 1904 the Eastern Cherokees won a million dollar judgment against the U.S. because of its violations of the treaties of 1835-6 and 1845. The payments were to go to all living persons who had been members of the tribe at the time of the treaties, or to their descendants. The Miller files contain about 46,000 applications submitted by members of the tribe, or their descendants, who submitted various forms of proof in support of their claim to share in the judgment. These files contain a wealth of genealogical data, but are filed by application number rather than alphabetically which makes it difficult to locate the files pertaining to particular people.
This CD-ROM overcomes this difficulty by listing all the applicants alphabetically, and providing their application number, which is essential for further research. In addition, each entry gives the birth year, birth place, and residence-at-application for each applicant, maiden names when given, and the Soundex code for the person's surname which can be helpful in finding spelling variations. The files themselves are available at a variety of locations described on the CD, and are being published in book form in the Cherokee by Blood."
Jerry Wright Jordan is the author of the "Cherokee by Blood" series that list Application 1 to currently 23,800 of these Guion Millers applications. Even if you do have a rejected number, it is very much worth your time to look these applications up and find out if they had other family that also put in rejected applications as well. This might give you some more details. Then, you can get the actual applications by either ordering the microfilm rolls from your local Family History Center or through the National Archives microfilm lending program.
From the National Archives Native American Microfilms Records Relating to Enrollment of the Eastern Cherokee by Guion Miller, 1908-1910. M685. 12 rolls. "Includes Guion Miller's report and his supplemental report as well as the roll of Eastern Cherokee. In certifying the eligibility of the Cherokee, Miller used earlier census lists and rolls that had been made of the Cherokee between 1835 and 1884. Copies of the Chapman, Drennen, and Old Settler rolls of 1851 and the Hester roll of 1884, with the appropriate indexes, are reproduced as the final roll of this publication."
Roll 1 - General Index to Eastern Cherokee Applications, vols. 1 and 2 Report submitted by Guion Miller, Special Commissioner, May 28, 1909.
Roll 2 - Vols. 1 and 2, applications 1-6000
Roll 3 - Vols. 3 and 4, applications 6001-16000
Roll 4 - Vols. 5-7, applications 16001-31000
Roll 5 - Vols. 8-10, applications 31001-45857
Roll 6 - Roll of Eastern Cherokee, May 28, 1909, and report on exceptions, with supplemental roll, Jan. 5, 1910 Miscellaneous testimony taken before special commissioners, Feb. 1908-Mar. 1909:
Roll 7 - Vols. 1 and 2
Roll 8 - Vols. 3 and 4
Roll 9 - Vols. 5 and 6
Roll 10 - Vols. 7 and 8
Roll 11 - Vols. 9 and 10
Roll 12 - Indexes and rolls of Eastern Cherokee Indians, 1850, 1851, and 1884, and miscellaneous notes and drafts
Dawes enrollment packet numbers
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