Treacy Martin Strickland, the daughter of James Martin, Sr. and stepdaughter of Mary Dixon Martin, was born about 1789 at Cheraw's Nest in the Pee Dee River Settlement in the old Darlington District, South Carolina. She had more than a dozen siblings and half siblings. Her mother was an Indian, today identified as Lumbee, and her father was also probably an Indian. On January 17, 1802 in Orangeburg of South Carolina's Barnwell District, she married David Jonathan Strickland, her first cousin, and, like her, of Lumbee Indian heritage. They had ten children: Rhoda Strickland Albritton, Abraham Strickland, Sr., John Strickland, Sr. (who married his mother's younger sister, his aunt, Mercy Martin Strickland), Peter Henry Strickland, Sr., Elizabeth Strickland Dukes, Wilson Strickland, Elijah Strickland, Richard Strickland, Cynthia Strickland Griffin, and Appa Ann Strickland Thompson. David and Treacy Strickland lived first in the Red Hill area of Bulloch County, Georgia and then in the Roding area of Bryan County, Georgia where they were "pioneers of Bryan County." Later, David and Treacy, who was ill, moved to the Brantley County, Georgia area to be near their daughter Cynthia Strickland Griffin. When Treacy died on March 18, 1856 at age 67 in what is now Brantley County, it was part of Ware County, Georgia. She is buried in an unmarked grave at High Bluff Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery. High Bluff Primitive Baptist Church is located near Schlatterville and Hoboken, in Brantley County in a region of Georgia known as the Wiregrass.

According to the late John Wise, Treacy's Native American line goes back to the Coree Indians who lived on the Atlantic coast along the Virginia/North Carolina border. Both Martin and Strickland are common surnames among Carolina Indians. By the late 17th century, the Coree population had declined due to disease and war. During the Tuscarora War, some of the surviving Coree fled south seeking refuge among the Cheraw Indians. Later some surviving Cheraws, remnants of other Indian groups, whites, and African Americans became the basis of the contemporary Lumbee Indians.

There are a variety of reasons Native American (American Indian) ancestry may not show up in a person’s DNA. One obvious reason is that a person may never have had any Native American ancestors. There are, however, other reasons. For most Americans with Native American ancestors, that ancestry is five or more generations back. In fact it can be so far back in a family tree that it does not show up in DNA tests. Also, most ancestry testing companies use only a small sample of Native American groups (often less than half a dozen tribes) as a reference for testing, and many of those sample groups are from South, rather than North, America. (My own case is a good example of how inaccurate genetics testing companies can be when it comes to Native American ancestry. Three different companies have estimated my Indian ancestry as none, a trace, and 9%.) Another important point about Native American DNA ancestry should be made. Anthropologist Mary Helms created the term “colonial Indian tribes” in the 1960s to refer to societies which originated as recognizable entities only as a direct result of colonial policies. Colonial tribes are often a racially mixed people that over time became identified more with their Indian ancestry rather than their African or white ancestry. These groups are culturally Indian while ultimately having little, if any, Indian DNA. Colonial tribes include groups as diverse as the Miskito Indians of eastern Nicaragua (whom Helms studied); various Amazon tribes in Brazil; the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina; the Black Seminoles of Oklahoma, Mexico, and the Bahamas; and many others. The term colonial tribe attempts to get at the idea that someone can be culturally something (Native American, for example) without being biologically something. So, for all of the above reasons, it should not be surprising that someone with, for example, a Lumbee Indian ancestor would not necessarily test as having significant or any Native American DNA.

Thanks to Treacy's descendant, the late John Wise, for so much of this information. Any errors, however, are mine alone. Please go to the "edit" link on this site with any corrections or additions.