Carrie Underwood Family History

Carrie Marie Underwood was born on March 10th, 1983 to Steve and Carole Underwood in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the youngest of three daughters.

Carrie was raised on her parents’ farm in the surrounding rural hamlet of Checotah in McIntosh county. Her father was a paper mill worker for Georgia Pacific and her mother was an elementary school teacher.  Her mother Carole, also from an all-daughter family, was her biggest supporter on her road to stardom.

During her childhood, Carrie sang at First Free Will Baptist Church and participated in Robbins Memorial Talent Show. She went on to perform at local events such as Old Settler’s Day and the Lions Club in Checotah.

Her singing breakthrough came after she auditioned for American Idol and became its fourth winner in 2005.  Commercial success soon followed.  Her debut album Some Hearts was the best selling country album of 2006 and 2007.  Her vocal range has been acclaimed as enormous, with critics highlighting her ability to hold notes for an extended period of time.

Time listed her as one of the hundred most influential people in the world in 2014.  Outside of music, Carrie has ventured into fashion and writing, releasing a fitness clothing line in 2015 and the best-selling fitness and lifestyle book Find Your Path in 2020.

What Line and What Ethnicity?

There has been some confusion about Carrie Underwood’s family tree.

This starts with her paternal grandfather.  Some have it as the Gerald Albert Underwood married to Mollie Smith, others as the Bryan Gladys Underwood married to Nell Green.  The latter appears the more probable and has been used here as the basis for the family tree shown.

Second, what is her ethnicity? There have been internet claims that, coming from Oklahoma, she has some degree of Muscogee Creek or Cherokee heritage.  But no proof has been offered.  In a 2013 interview Carrie herself seemed to say that she does not have Native American ancestry.

Then there is a story about Scottish ancestry.  Again denied by the Underwoods.  If anything, they think they have Irish ancestry.

The Underwood Family Line

If the Bryan Gladys Underwood connection is indeed correct, then the family line would have started in Pennsylvania with Benjamin and Mary Underwood who were listed as founding members of the Goshen Baptist Church in Greene county in 1773.  Benjamin was probably the son of the Quaker Samuel Underwood who married Anne Travilla in Chester county in 1738.

Kentucky.  After Benjamin’s death in 1776, his widow Mary moved down the Ohio river to Kentucky with her five young children,  They settled in Shelby county.  The line in Kentucky went as follows:

• from Jacob Underwood (1772-1830)
• to James Underwood (1795-1850)
• and to Malachi Underwood (1813-1910)

Arkansas.  In the 1840’s, Malachi Underwood left Kentucky for Arkansas where he farmed.  After the Civil War started, he and his son James, born in 1848, enlisted in 1863 on the Union side with the 3rd Regiment of the Arkansas Cavalry.  They both returned.  Malachi lived until 1910, James to 1916.

Oklahoma.  In the early 1890’s, soon after the famous Oklahoma Land Run, James moved with his family to Sequoyah county in the eastern part of what was then still Indian territory.  Back in Arkansas, his sister Tennessee was already on the second of her four husbands.

James’s son Harmon (Harmie) married Myrtle Higgins in Oklahoma in 1905.  Bryan Gladys Underwood was their second son.  In 1906 Harmie lost his older brother Cisro who died in a horse-riding accident.  He was buried somewhere along the Arkansas river.  And in 1907 Oklahoma became a state of the Union.

Later Underwoods settled in Muskogee county, around where Carrie Underwood was born and grew up.

Maternal Line

Carrie’s mother Carole was from a Shatswell line.  Originally from Salem, Massuchusetts, Thomas Crownshield Shatswell had migrated south and west in the 1830’s to what was then Arkansas territory.   In 1871 this Thomas was foully murdered by robbers while riding his horse near his home in Newton county, Arkansas.

But one line of his descendants, similar to the Underwoods, made its way from Arkansas to Oklahoma and to McIntosh county there.  Their numbers included:

• George Shatswell (1872-1965) and his wife Sarah (1881-1962)
• and his son Lesker (Leck) Shatswell (1901-1936) and his wife Rosie (1910-1960)

Unfortunately Lesker had been killed by a freight train in 1936 while back in Arkansas.

Carl, Carrie’s maternal grandfather, was Lesker’s son and had been born in McIntosh county, Oklahoma in 1927.

 He joined the US Army at the end of World War Two and was stationed in Japan.  Afterwards he returned to Oklahoma, married Gladys Luke in 1963 and became step-father to her five children – all girls!  He would complain that with his daughters around he could never get into the bathroom.

Carl and Gladys were great supporters of their granddaughter Carrie.

“I figured she’d make something of it, because she’s sung all of her life,” Carl said. “She went to Kansas one time and was singing on the bus. Her grandmother and me, we tried to get her to hush up, but the rest of the folks on there, they wanted her to keep singing.  She was just three at the time.”

Carl at the age of seventy-eight was there with the rest of the family at St. Louis to see Carrie win the American Idol competition in 2005.  He died in 2016.

Carrie Underwood’s Family Tree

• Benjamin Underwood (1739-1776) m. Mary Crow (1742-1818) in Pennsylvania in 1762
• – Mary (Polly) Underwood (1765-1840) m. George Yount
• – John Underwood (1767-1830) m. Mary Teague
• – Nathaniel (Nathan) Underwood (1769-1826) m. Betsy Wright
• – Jacob Underwood (1772-1830)

• Jacob Underwood from Pennsylvania m. Hannah Robinson (1776-1850) in Kentucky in 1793
• – James Underwood (1795-1850)
• – John Underwood (1798-1861) m. Rebecca Radford

• James Underwood from Kentucky m. Ceria (Sarah) Box (1796-1860) in 1812
• – Malachi Underwood (1813-1910)
• – Reuben Underwood (1817-1868)
• – William Underwood (1826-1867) m. Judia Burnham (Cherokee)

• Malachi Underwood from Kentucky m. Louisa Trammell (1826-1898) in Arkansas in 1846
• – Thomas Underwood (1847-1906)
• – James Underwood (1848-1916)
• – Nancy Underwood (1854-1936) m. John Ragsdale
• – Tennessee Underwood (1858-1936) m. John Miller and three other husbands

• James Gideon Underwood from Arkansas m. Eliza (Gertie) Allen (1847-1921) in Arkansas in 1865
• – James Underwood (1870-1954) m. Rosa Lee Hamilton
• – Charles (Cisro) Underwood (1876-1906) m. Frances Palmer
• – Harmon (Harmie) Underwood (1888-1933)

• Harmon Underwood from Arkansas m. Myrtle Higgins (1891-1969) in Oklahoma in 1905
• – Attress Underwood (1906-1962) m. Evelyn Ray
• – Bryan Underwood (1909-1990)
• – Ivas Underwood (1915-1957) m. Fern Huggins
• – Oleda Underwood (1921-1999) m. William Martin
• – Herman (Shorty) Underwood (1928-2011)
• – Jerril (Jake) Underwood (1930-2013) m. Marjorie Oldham

• Bryan Gladys Underwood from Oklahoma m. Nell Green (1911-2006) in Oklahoma in 1928
• – Jerry Underwood (1929-2007)
• – William (Dub) Underwood (1932-2021) m. Irene Bean
• – David Underwood (1934-2015) m. Peggy Peden
• – Stephen (Steve) Underwood (b. 1945)

• Stephen Bryan Underwood m. Carole Shatswell (b. 1949) in Oklahoma in 1968
• – Shanna Underwood (b. 1970) m. Martin Means, teacher
• – Stephanie Underwood (b. 1973), m. Marc Shelton, teacher
• – Carrie Underwood (b. 1983)

• Carrie Underwood m. Michael Fisher, ice hockey player from Canada (b. 1980) in Georgia in 2010
• – Isaiah Fisher (b. 2015)
• – Jacob Fisher (b. 2019)