A Double Life Discovered

The dogs and I had a blast walking about yesterday - there was a light breeze, and I was bundled up, as it was cold, but all the pups seemed invigorated by the change.  (And at least it was not windy!)  I took Rosie and Remy out first, and we walked and explored a few neighborhoods that I hadn't been in before.  Then I took out Annie and Bentley, and followed them with Olie - Annie and Bentley are eager to move forward, get some exercise, and just plain old "Go."  Olie, on the other hand, feels the need to thoroughly sniff and process each and every scent of every single thing we walk by.  I've found that if I give her 15 seconds to sniff, then give a light tug on the lead, she will generally come along willingly.  (Olie weighs 115 pounds, while Annie is 125; Bentley is all of 50 pounds - and he's the king of the harem.)  While Annie and Olie are very large shepherds, they are also very gentle and loving, but their size frightens a lot of people.  I'll try to take some photos of them...
Yesterday afternoon, while waiting for my lunch to finish cooking, I was sitting at the computer, and just for the heck of it, typed in a search for my great-great-grandfather, Singleton Wilson Busey.  He was a white man who was born in Indiana in 1818, and he married Nancy Goodwin in 1840 in Indiana, and they had several children born in Missouri and Kansas.  Singleton, and his son James, both served in the US 14th Kansas Cavalry (Company C) during the Civil War.  The search engine yesterday kept spitting out refernces to the "Indian Home Guard" and the "Indian Brigade," so I finally checked out the sites.  Surprise, surprise!  Apparently, Singleton led two lives - one, as a farmer and husband to Nancy; the other, as a farmer and husband to a Cherokee woman named Mary A. Moman, with whom he also had children - and it was to Mary that the US government paid Singleton's Civil War pension.  However, he did not use the name of Singleton Busey when he married Mary, and when he signed on to serve in the Kansas Indian Home Guard - there he was known as William J. Margan.  My Dad always told us kids that we had Cherokee blood in our backgrounds - now I really do wonder if that's true. In my genealogy, I have Martha Elizabeth Busey listed as the daughter of Singleton and Nancy.  Records say she was born in Missouri in 1850.  In checking the 1850 Census (which was done in December that year), I found that Singleton and Nancy had a two-year-old daughter named Mary E.  I have not been able to access the Cherokee Nation Census as yet, so I am wondering if he and Mary had a daughter in 1850 - or if Martha is, indeed, Mary E.   -  I love having a mystery to explore!