Jerry,

I think what peaked my attention to your posting was, first of all, I read your postings and appreciate the contribution you make to this and other History-Sites.Com message boards. Secondly, as you may know, Ken Martin and I are double first-cousins (Martin brothers married Lee sisters). We are also, mixed-blood Cherokees and members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Ken's primary interest is Native-American/Cherokee History which overlaps into the Indian Territory in the Civil War. I'm the Civil War historian who developed an interest in family genealogy, which led me to understand better my Native-American ancestry.

I've sort of combined my Civil War and Native-American interests and sometime ago, tried to collect names of full and mixed-blood Native-Americans who were members of "white" Union and Confederate units. I found members of the 5th Mississippi Infantry, the 28th Louisiana Infantry, the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters and a number of other units who had verifiable individuals and sometimes even entire companies composed of Catawbas, Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks (Muscogee), Ojibwees (Chippewa) and countless other tribes. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, lack of interest by others and far too many "family stories" claiming Indian ancestry without proof, my research "bogged down".

When you posted the information regarding your grandfather, it drew my interest, but I must say the claim of a field grade officer and regimental commander, Robert W. Folsom, being a mixed-blood, really attracted my attention. Since your posting, I've been in touch with two experts on field grade officers/Colonels in the Confederate army. One has published a book and the other is about to. Both men are very familiar with Robert Folsom and are aware of the Cherokee and Choctaw Folsoms in the Confederate army, but neither acknowledges Robert W. Folsom of the 14th Georgia Infantry being a Native-American. I've done some searching on the internet and with some of the services I subscribe to , like Ancestry.Com. I've been able to find very little "family tree" information for Robert W. Folsom and nothing confirming a Cherokee or Choctaw background.

I would be very interested if you or others on the board could verify the claim of Native-American ancestry for Robert W. Folsom.

I'm also going to post this on the Georgia board, maybe some of the scholars there can help.

Jim