NATIVE HONOR HOURS

From Downloads

Click on the picture or download link to listen to the radio show that aired 2/16/2011.  There is about 5 minutes of music before the actual show starts.  I am on in the 2nd hour.  

This week, I was a guest on NATIVE HONOR HOURS at the UNOmaha MavRadio station which is heard every Wednesday 3-5 p.m. (CST). I was there in my capacity as a Family History Consultant and Volunteer at the Family History Center, of which I have been volunteering for over 10 years. I have also been researching my own family history for over 30 years, as well as the Family History of my husband, who is an enrolled member of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska. The purpose on the radio show was to direct those people interested in searching out their Native American Roots.

You start Native American Genealogy like you would any other family history. Start with yourself and work your way back. I always recommend you start by filling out a pedigree chart with you and your direct line ancenstors, and then filling out Family Group Charts for each set of grandparents on the pedigree chart. You can dowload some free charts here. Ask parents, grandparents or any other relatives any and all information they have that will help you trace your family back. Copies of birth, marriage and death certificates will have lots of information on them.

The next step that I recommend is finding your families on the census records. This is a good way to add siblings and birth dates. It can also help in the migration of families, as you can see from the place of birth of the children where they lived. The US Federal census start in 1790 and are taken every 10 years. We can view the census records up until the 1930 census. The 1940 census will be available in 2012. The US Government won't release the census records until 72 years from the time they were taken because of privacy laws. 1850 is the first census that actually listed everyone in the family. Prior to that, they just listed the heads of households with a tally for males and females in different age groups. 1860 was the first federal census that included Native Americans. Enumerators were instructed as follows:

"Indians not taxed are not to be enumerated. The families of Indians who have renounced tribal rule, and who under state or territory laws exercise the rights of citizens, are not to bae enumerated."

Even though their race or "color" was not noted as "Indian", there were more than 40,000 Indians recorded in 1860. The 1870 census was the first census to list "Indian" as a choice of race or "color". By 1900 all Native Americans were included on the Federal census.

Because of the allotments of land the Indian peoples received from the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which started with the Southeastern Indians, the government needed to keep track of the them. The government kept track of them by creating Indian census rolls. These were kept on a yearly basis for each tribe. These rolls are not unlike the US Federal census in that they keep track of them by listing head of households, and other members of the household and their ages. But in addition to that, you may also find listed on them the blood quantum, and their roll numbers. Because of the births and deaths during the year, which date they would record on the census, their roll number changed each year and they would sometimes also put the previous years number. This comes in handy as sometimes they were listed by their Indian name, their translated Indian name, or the new name and surname given to them. The number helps to verify that you have the right family. If you know your grandparents names, but do not know your grandmother's maiden name, this is extremely helpful, as you just keep searching year by year, working your way backwards. If they have listed the previous enrollment number by her name the first year they were married, then you can find her with her family the year before by searching for her previous years enrollment. But you have to know who your ancestors are, which tribe they belonged to and where they resided for these rolls to be of any value for you. BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) Land Records are also a good source to use to search your Native American Family History.

The Dawes Rolls, are the 1896-1904 enrollment applications of the Five Civilized Tribes. This is the Index of the Cherokees, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cree, and Seminole people who were NOT recognized by the tribes and had to make application to be considered for thier tribal citizenship. If your ancestor was on the Indian census in 1896 the will NOT be on this index. Also, if your ancestor was NOT living in Indian Territory during 1898-1914, they will NOT be listed on the Dawes Rolls. Only those Indians who RECEIVED LAND under the Dawes Act provisions are listed. The Cherokee people are a very well documented group of people. There are over thirty rolls of the Cherokee people dating back to before the forced removal. Some full bloods refused to enroll, and some of those were later found and arrested and then forced to enroll. Some were rejected because of residency requirements and there were some non-Indians, trying to pass themselves off as Indians, enticed by the land allotments, who were also rejected.

I did find a few websites devoted to Cherokee that I thought were interesting reading. My favorite one to read was a blog called Pollysgranddaughter and I found another article on the myth of the Cherokee Princess at Allthingscherokee. Which leads me to finding other websites on Native American Ancestry. A search engine like google is a great source to find records and resources available online. There are a good number of web sites to help you find more information on the various specific tribes and their records. I have listed a few of them here. Even though some of them are paid subscription sites, all the ones I have listed are available for the public to use free at a Family History Center (FHC). Also, I have to say, that all FHC branches have available to order from Salt Lake's big Family History Library catalog, various records from BIA agencies, including the Indian Censuses. The National Archives is another valuable source for Native American Heritage.

Familysearch.org is a free site by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They are in the process of digitizing all of their millions of records from their big mountain vault and putting them online for anyone to use, free of charge. There are a mix of both searchable and browsable records. You can find most of the US Federal Census records here. Because the process of digitizing and transcribing their records are ongoing, this site is constantly being updated with new records.

Accessgenealogy.com is a free site that has indexes for the Dawes and Guion-Miller rolls. It has tons of information on different tribes. This is a great site to be informed about Native American Ancestry.

Ancestry.com is a paid subscription site has not only all the available US Federal census, but also the U.S. Indian Census Schedules for 1885-1940 , U.S. Native American Enrollment Cards for the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914, Enrollment Cards for the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914, and more. This site is available at most public libraries and FHC's.

Footnote.com is also a paid subscription site available at the FHC's. They have stories and events for various tribes, as well as the Indian Census Rolls for 1885-1940, Dawes Packets, Dawes Enrollment Cards (1898–1914), Eastern Cherokee Applications (1906–1909), Enrollment of Eastern Cherokee by Guion Miller (1908-1910) and more, including some photos.

There are many resources available to us now than there were even a few years ago. The internet is a wonderful thing and allows for more doors to be opened up. But with this door, comes some inaccuracies. My best advice to anyone researching their family history is to document and source their findings. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being weak and 5 being strong, I would say that any any record you find of actual documents are a strong source, or a 5. Birth, marriage and death certificates fall under this category. (Although a death certificate is a strong source for the death date, it is only a good source for the birth date. Other than the death information, the birth, and parents information are as only good as the person providing the information knows.) Census records are a good source, 3 or 4, and again, are only as good as the person giving the information to the census taker. That person could have been any family member, or even a neighbor. Then there is the additional possibility of errors as the census taker made the handwritten extra copies for the different levels of government). Finding an individual's family tree on the internet that has your ancestor on it is not the strongest source to prove your ancestry. I would give it a 1 or a 2. If they have their family history documented, it is a little stronger, maybe 3 or 4. But I have seen instances where someone, trying to prove their Indian Ancestry, cited a family on a census record as theirs, even though the last name was totally different. The daughter's first name and age were correct, and this family was recorded as "Indian" in the race column. But that is where the similarities stopped. When finding an actual birth record for this daughter, I found that her mother and father, listed on the birth record was not the same names as on this census. I did find her on the same year's census, and under her correct surname, but as "white". This person wanted to prove that their ancestor was "Indian" that they "forced" that document as proof. So, use other people's submission of their family history as a point of reference, but don't accept it as truth until you verify it. I received someone's genealogy of my great great grandfather in the mail years ago. I started to verify it all and got back a few generations and everything was matching up to the actual records I was finding as a result of her work. I decided not to verify the last 2 generations she gave me, because the rest of it had been matching up perfectly so far. Years later, as I was searching on the internet, I ran across a marriage record of the one that I stopped at verifying. The parents names did not match to that of which I had been given in that family history to the marriage records online. I ordered the film for the actual marriage records that were available for that area, and discovered, that I should have kept verifying and not assumed they were all correct after only verifying a few. I had do delete and correct a lot of information in my family file. It was an important lesson learned. Basing your family history on anything that you cannot verify means you are writing a work of fiction. As the old adage goes, "Genealogy without proof is mythology".