Not all Cherokee: Chief Mankiller’s N.C. roots

Death noted: Wilma Mankiller, chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995, at her home near Tahlequah, Okla. She was 64.

Her 1993 autobiography, “Mankiller: A Chief and Her People,” includes this  genealogical aside: “My [Dutch-Irish] mother’s ancestry goes back to North Carolina, where her kinfolk from the Sitton side were some of the first iron makers, while the Gillespies were craftsmen who turned out fine long rifles.

“It is an intriguing family legend that the Sittons were related somehow to Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd…. They came from the same county in northern Georgia.”