Martha 1/2 Cherokee Benge (Martin) - Parentage

Try looking for her parents on this site

http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/h/i/c/James-R-Hicks-VA/BOOK-0001/0000-...

Martha is not listed in Hicks' book.

One reference below lists her father as another Joseph Martin (1680-1761), son of Abrahm Martin (1642-1711), who was a cousin of Joseph Martin Sr (b 1700-1712). Joseph, son of Abrahm, would have been the right age. Unfortunately, several other sites do not list this Joseph as a son of Abrahm and he is not mentioned in Abrahm's will.

http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/BENGE/2002-11/1037410563

http://randidavenport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/TheNewKent_Han... (page 12) points out that Joseph Martin + Susannah Chiles is incorrect as parents (I have disconnected).  They also note that Martha is not known in any of the (large and documented) Martin landowning families, and that indeed that would not fit as wife of a small landowner like Benge.  They suggest a Joseph Martin & his first wife Ann, of the Paint Clan.

https://books.google.com/books?id=f9AeCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT129&lpg...

Shawnee Heritage V By Don Greene # 253 has no parents for her. 

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/general/topics/ai/28004/ seems to be saying Thomas Benge Sr (1710 - 1750) had two wives who have been conflated -

1. ? Mary? A Cherokee
2. Martha Martin,  daughter of Joseph 

Thomas Benge in the Albermarle County, VA deed records: one on Deed Book 5, page 276, 1771; and another in Deed Book 7, page 339, 1778.

.It appears then that Thomas Benge the Sr had 2 wives for Mary benge was arrested for theft 1744 and nearest to Thomas Benge 1748.

There are listings for Thomas Benge in the Albermarle County, VA deed records: one on Deed Book 5, page 276, 1771; and another in Deed Book 7, page 339, 1778. Martha Martin's father, Thomas Benge Sr.'s second wife, probated 1761 Albermarle County, VA census. Also look at the land deed in Washington County, VA for Joseph Martin, Oct. 19, 1795.

Susannah Lewis through two of their daughters, Sarah "Sally" and Susannah.the statements that their brother,"King David" Benge, was a quarter Cherokee through his grandmother, David Benge, died March 3, 1854, at the age of ninety-four in Clay County, Kentucky.

Here are some the problems that you face. Thomas Benge Jr.'s first marriage was to a Cherokee woman, It was not until he was near death, in 1854, that he openly acknowledged his Cherokee ancestry.  It was Thomas Benge's father, Thomas Benge Sr., whose first marriage was to a Cherokee woman, name unknown. His second wife was Martha Martin, daughter of Captain Joseph Martin

Thank you, I do have a Joseph b 1680 son of Abram pff thr line of Abram & Rebecca Bell. I'll check that out.

The geneology on Benge line, list both the father and son Thomas Benge marrying a Martha Martin. According to Ken Tankersly the son married first, sister of Oukaii Oukah brother of Great Eagle and then Martha Martin. This work is still in progress. According to Don Green they were Shawnee. I have several Martin lines I am researching for the facts. As soon as this is done I will change the tree.

That's great news, thank you.

I have not seen anything that says Thomas (1) Benge (b 1710) and Thomas (2) Benge (b 1734) each married someone named Martha Martin. The sources seem very consistent that Thomas (1) married Martha Martin and Thomas (2) married Susannah Lewis (daughter of William Terrell Lewis and Sarah Martin).

Your research matches mine. The younger Thomas was married to Susannah Lewis.

Mary Thacker writes me:

According to Shawnee Heritage Bk. 3
Robert Benge 1/2 Powhtan & Metis [White]
#116 b. 1666 James City, VA
d. 1758 Richmond, VA

Father John Benge had 2 wives

1. Joan ukn b. VA 1649 d. aft 1665
2. Sarah Sally ukn b. 1670VA d. 1710 VA, she was a Shawano maiden captured by slave traders in SW VA. Robert married her in 1686. they had 12 children. I descend from Thomas Benge born 1710 and Sarah Sally

I have been going over several Joseph Martin's. I have 5 folders of a Joseph Martin and more stored away I have not gotten to. Love to have help.

The Joseph of 1700 who married Susanna Chilies, had a Martha b.1 Nov 1739 d.20 Jun1813. She married a Pomfert Waller Jr..I have seen 1/2 Cherokee Martha listed to her.don't think it's right. These Joseph Martin's I believe are possibly confused.

Thomas Benge Sr. Born 1711 Albemarle, VA d. 1774 Wilkes, NC, he was 1/2 Shawano-Powhatan- Metis, according to Don Green, married 1st Martha Martin b. 1711 1/2 Cherokee ,[ her sister Hannah Martin b. 1713 married Thomas's brother John, b.1688 died 1724.

Thomas Benge 1711 and 1st wife had
James b.1731
Samuel b. 1733
Trader John Benge
Thomas Benge 1734

2nd marriage was to to Martha Martin born 1744, daughter of

Joseph b. 1681 Essex, VA the son of John Martin b.1650 Essex, VA and his 1st wife name Sarah Chllies, b 1709 a Shawnee maiden,

From what I learned Sarah and Susannah are two different people. Try Shawnee Heritage, BK IV Pre 1700's M-Z. and BK 5 #116 i believe. The Martin's of Essex, VA, I have seen somewhere go back to the Powhatans. I have the 1711 Martha in one of my folders. I have so much acquired that it's hard to keep track of it all and confusing..

Now I am trying to confirm and collect evidence to the truth. All that I have are others work. It is work in progress. A lot of it came from ancestry.com.

hope this helps

So I think we need to:

- Change Martha Martin's display name and (perhaps) add her parents as Joseph Martin & his first wife Ann, of the Paint Clan?

- add a first wife for Thomas Benge Sr (1710 - 1750) of Mary (unknown) (Cherokee)

Which children belong with which wife?

Is there another source besides Don Greene's "Shawnee Heritage" books, which are problematic (to put it mildly)?

I would like to see Geni flag profiles using "Shawnee Heritage" as their only source, the way WikiTree does.

Patawomeck Tribal Historian Bill Deyo has this to say about the books:
"The Shawnee/Cornstalk children listed on the site (Wikitree) have no basis in fact that I know of and appear to be from that...book on Shawnee heritage that published a mass of incorrect information and outright lies."

read more here:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Shawnee_Heritage_Fraud

http://ancestorstealing.blogspot.com/2017/03/shawnee-heritage-by-do...

https://www.ancestry.com/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=169&p...

[I'm not a descendant, but one of Martha's descendants married one of my Cooper uncles.]

I am also uncomfortable with the ethnicity being added to the surname field, especially with the blood quantum.

My preference would be for ethnicity information to go on the About tab or in the Ethnicity field (see the Personal tab in Edit Profile). Unless the ethnicity was a sort of nickname for the person during life.

But I'm not a descendant, so I defer to those who are!

I've been seeing a great many of these edits in recent weeks (showing Native ancestry in the Name or Suffix fields), so I hope to get a sense of how other people feel about it. Thanks, all.

Maybe start a project, that we can use for cleanup.

We have good work going on now in the Cherokee Genealogy & History Project

https://www.geni.com/projects/Cherokee-Genealogy-and-History/12#/ta...

So start a discussion there for this profile: we’ve already cleaned a lot of the Benge line.

Amy Nordahl Cote I’m not comfortable. I don’t need my ethnicity in my name, there’s a field for that if I choose.

On the other hand, for disambiguation on historic profiles, I do use the suffix field for additional identification, or the middle name field for a byname.

Joseph Martin, of North Carolina
Joseph Martin, of the Plymouth Colony
Bob “the Bench” Benge

Etc.

https://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Naming_Conventions

I was told by my Robbins aunts in Kentucky that we possibly had a Cherokee connection through “Betty” Benge/Benjey. Elizabeth Talitha Benjey, granddaughter of Old Trader John Benge and daughter of Joseph Benjey (John’s son) married James Silas Barnett. Their daughter Judah Margaret marked my g-grandfather John Calvin Robbins. I have no Native American DNA, even though I have taken 2 tests. Trader John had two wives, Elizabeth Lewis—a white woman from Albemarle, VA, and Wurtah Geist, a Cherokee and mother of Sequoia. I question Mr. Green’s book and some of the Cherokee connections. I don’t think Trader John’s mother was Cherokee or Joseph was Cherokee. If so, my brother and I would have Cherokee DNA. I am very curious about Thoman Benge, Sr.’s wife who was Teader John’s mother. There is also question as to who was Joseph’s mother. I tend to think it was Elizabeth Lewis since I have no Cherokee DNA. The Lewis family was very upset when Trader John’s other family was discovered. Elizabeth Lewis remarried and had more children.

Not having any Native DNA from a distant ancestor does not disprove Native ancestry. We don't inherit all of our ancestors' DNA.

Put another way: after five or more generations, some of our ancestors may not show up in our DNA, which is one reason it's good to test the oldest living family members who are willing, if possible.

http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2009/11/10/qa-everyone-has-two-fam...

Mary Elizabeth Robbins You also might want to post your query in a discussion in the Cherokee genealogy project, tagging a Geni profile if you can

https://www.geni.com/projects/Cherokee-Genealogy-and-History/12

From what I recall what you describe sounds correct.

I took an interest in the line because it looks like a possible ancestral cousin’s descendants filed a Cherokee claim, saying they were from Bob the bench’s half brother (same Cherokee mother).

The claim was rejected.

Hi Erica, I’m not sure exactly how to post my question, but will try. Bob the Bench or Bob Benge/Captain Bob, I think, was my relative Joseph Benjey/Benge’s 1/2 brother. Old TraderJohn Benge was their father. Joseph’s mother was, I believe, Elizabeth Lewis. Bob’s mother was Wurtah Geist—also mother of Sequoia. I read that Joseph changed the shelf his last name to disassociate himself from Bob Benge. Captain Benge is know for a massacre in Southwestern Virginia. I also read that he killed his parents. Thanks!
Best,
Beth

That matches the Geni tree

Joseph Benjey

Kathryn Forbes I think the tree is in good shape ?

Elizabeth had written

“.... I don’t think Trader John’s mother was Cherokee or Joseph was Cherokee. If so, my brother and I would have Cherokee DNA. I am very curious about Thoman Benge, Sr.’s wife who was Teader John’s mother. There is also question as to who was Joseph’s mother. I tend to think it was Elizabeth Lewis ...”

I don’t know that Trader John Benge’s parents are known, but he was a white man, not mixed Cherokee. Bob Benge (The Bench) and Lucy Benge were his children. His wife was a niece of Old Tassel. Lucy Benge married George Lowrey, Jr. George’s brother John had daughters named Eliza and Jennie. They married white men named Matin and Robert Benge, They were sons of a white couple, Obediah and Sarah Benge. Obediah wrote in his Revolutionary War pension application that he was born in Virginia, then Surry County, N.C.,, then Tennessee, then among the Cherokee in Georgia for about twenty years prior to Removal. He makes no mention of his father, only a stepfather. Where is there documentation that Obediah was the son of John Benge the Trader? If he had Cherokee relatives why didn’t he mention them? Is there any actual documentation that John Benge was the father of both Cherokee Bob Benge and White Obediah Benge?

This is the undocumented Benge claim: That John Benge married a woman named. Elizabeth Lewis in Virginia. They were the parents of William, Sarah, and Obediah, and then John went to the Cherokee Nation. Elizabeth then remarried and moved to North Carolina. I think a lot of this comes from earlier misreadings of Starr's liniages in an article in the Journal of Cherokee Studies that confused the Robert and Martin Benge, who married the Lowery daughters with the children of Trader John Benge. These men were born in the 1800's. While it's certainly possible that Obediah Benge and John Benge were somehow related, I have never seen any documentation to support that.

And all of this seems to stem from garbage "genealogy" invented by Don Greene.

I have read a lot about Trader John Benge and his first wife Elizabeth Lewis. His brother Thomas married her sister Susannah. The girls were the daughters of William Terrell Lewis and Sarah Martin. The father of “Trader” John and Thomas, jr. was Thomas Benge, Sr. Their line of Benge relatives can be traced to William Bynge/Binge/Bing/Binges, an immigrant from Wrotham, England, arriving in Virginia in 1619, on the “Marygold,” lthen living on the Treasurer’s ( the treasurer was G. Sandys’ plantation) plantation at Jamestown. From records of the Virginia Company, that William Binge was a venture capitalist probably trading in tobacco because he was so concerned about tobacco patients. He was listed as an Adventurer and not a Planter.
There are also records for Tho as Benge, (Sr.) in the Albemarle County, Va deed records: one on deed Book5, Page 276, 1771, and another in Deed Book 7, page 339, 1778. Martha Martin’s father, Thomas Benge Sr.’s second wife, probated 1761 Albemarle County, VA census. Also mentioned in the land deed in Washington County, VA, for Joseph Martin, Oct. 19, 1795. Thomas Benge’s first marriage was to a Cherokee woman.
“Trader” John Benge was born in Albemarle, Virginia, about 1735; his brother Thomas, Jr. was also born in VA. John married Elizabeth Lewis, the daughter of a prominent family also from Albemarle, Va. Their children were William Lewis (b. 1758), Elizabeth (b 1760), Sarah “Sally” (b 1761), Obediah Martin (b 1763), and Joseph (b 1764.) Apparently, John Benge also lived with Wurtah Watts Gist. The union of Wurtah and John Benge produced Robert “Bob” Benge “The Bench,” Utana “The Tail,” Tashliskeat, and Lucy Elizabeth and her family found out about John’s Cherokee family, and the marriage was dissolved. She remarried and had other children. Elizabeth’s sons by John were left out of the genealogy and wills of the Lewis family.
Joseph Benjey ( changed the spelling of his name to disassociate himself from John’s other family) was my relative. He was my g-g-g- grandfather. Joseph was born in Montgomery, VA (c. 1761-1764) and died in Harlan, KY, in 1842. His daughter Elizabeth Talitha Benjey Barnett was my g-g grandmother. Her daughter Judah Margaret Barnett Robbins was my g-grandmother. William M. Robbins was my grandfather from Bell County, Ky.
As mentioned I have no Native American DNA, so I assume that my relative was Elizabeth Lewis, not Wurtah Gist, mother of Sequoia and Robert Benge”The Bench.”
Beth Robbins DeBergh

Please advice if changes to the Geni tree are needed.

I have found nothing in the way of records to support the connection of the Cherokee trader John Benge with the Benges who married daughters of William Lewis. There are land records in Albemarle County that connect William Lewis to a Thomas Benge and a John Benge, but nothing else. Almost nothing is known of John the Trader. He is named in few records. There is also nothing whatsoever to suggest that Obediah Benge was related to Trader John. Some of this comes from Don Greene’s junk, some from mis-reading or misunderstanding Starrs entry for Martin and Robert Benge and thinking they were sons of Trader John when they were actually sons of Obediah. Bob “The Bench” Benge did not have a brother named Martin Benge, he had a half-brother or cousin called “The Tail.”

Mary Elizabeth Robbins & Kathryn Forbes

This sounds like we should separate the Benge / Lewis family from the Trader Benge family ?

I think so. At this point there’s nothing more than a same-name situation with two men named John Benge. The Cherokee trader should have two children, Bob “The Bench” and Lucy. “The Tail” is most likely the son of Bob’s mother and a Cherokee father. Lucy probably has a different mother since she was much younger.