The family of a Cherokee woman of the Deer Clan who may have been named “Ga-ho-ga” needs some (actually a lot of) help. The profile [[Cherokee-43|Ga-ho-ga]] represents a woman whose name, dates, parents, and spouse are actually unknown. She certainly existed because she was the mother of two documented women, but as with most Cherokee women prior to the Revolutionary War there are no records which include her. Emmet Starr did not name her or her husband(s), only saying that she was from the Deer Clan and that her daughters were full-bloods. [Starr, Emmet. “History of the Cherokee Indians.” p. 474] Records of the Moravians and Cherokee claim records confirm that daughters Nancy and Dorcas had brothers named George and William, but almost nothing else is known of the brothers.
James Hicks [https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/h/i/c/James-R-Hicks-VA/BOOK-0001/0000-0001.html] and John Strange state without documentation that some or all Ga-ho-ga’s children were fathered by a man named John Lightfoot. There is not a single person named “Lightfoot” in Starr’s Cherokee genealogies, but later in life daughter Dorcas was referred to as a half-blood [Shadburn and Strange, “Upon Our Ruins.” p. 101.] Although there was a prominent and extensive Virginia Lightfoot family at this time with several sons named John, research has been unable to place a specific John Lightfoot in the Cherokee Nation at the correct time. The profile for [[Lightfoot-500|Capt. John Lightfoot]] gives him a wife named Elizabeth and additional children named Claiborne and Celia.
According to Emmet Starr, “Ga-ho-ga” had two daughters, one named Ga-ho-ga (called Nancy in English), and one named Dorcas [[Lightfoot-716]]. “Nancy” currently has at least three profiles, [[Litefoot-1]], [[Ga-ho-ga-1|Nancy Foster]], and [[Foster-4158|Ga-ho-ga Adair]]. Dorcas is listed as [[Lightfoot-716|Dorcas Lightfoot]] and [[Lightfoot-975|Dorcas Landrum]]. Nancy had children by two men, James Foster and John Adair. Dorcas had children by a man named Benge and by Charles Gordon Duncan. There are also duplicates among the husbands.
Would anyone else like to take a deep breath, take the plunge and help straighten out this family?
