Re: Name Heritage
in reply to a message by Resa
Can you help out a little more, e.g., by saying where your grandmother was born and when?
Replies
Hello, I don't have any information on her other than she lived in Mississippi. Thank YOU
Some Choctaw and a very few Natchez remained after the removals of the 1830s. From what information I can find it doesn't appear to be a Choctaw name, and may be a derivative of American French or Creole (Mississippi was New France just like Louisiana). The correlation in form between Markareese and "Mark the trail" is too unlikely unless the meaning is derived from the name, or there is an obscure American French origin (the lack of a suitable word similar to reese or eese in French dictionaries is inconclusive - American French has a different, sparsely documented vocabulary). On the other hand it may have originally been a normal European name like Marguerite. To search the Dawes lists though you'll need a surname, and your grandmother may probably have been born after this census. Almost all will have European names.
This message was edited 4/3/2020, 9:33 AM
I have a sneaking suspicion its a badly/phonetically spelled derivative of a French or Spanish term (e.g. marca el rastro), not any native American language. You'd probably have to hope you can find something in the Dawes list.
This message was edited 3/31/2020, 6:38 AM
Thank You