Native American genealogy

[Jan1954]

I was chatting with a neighbour earlier today and she was saying that she wanted to start on her family history. No immediate problems with her Mum's side of the family as at first glance they appear to go back for generations in Britain.

However, her late father was a Native American. She did mention the tribe, but it was one with which I was not familiar and so I cannot remember it off-hand.

She does not use a computer and so research via the interwebby could be rather difficult, but the question still remains:

How would she go about researching her Native American ancestry?

Thank you in anticipation,

[Waitabit]

She might start with Social Security lists - Obits in his USA state, service records,-on Ancestry, others searching for his name/highschool records- newspapers. Just putting his name/residential state online may give surprises.

good hunting, or you might suggest a name & let the BG crowd help along.

[pippycat]

Jan

As the name of the tribe is known, best to check and see if they have a tribal website - many have their own records.

If not, there is also Indian Rolls (census) Missionary documents (diaries + reports) state archives and historical societies that might be able to help.

[Colin Rowledge]

On Ancestry.com there is a U.S. Indian Census Rolls 1885-1940. Maybe worth checking. Personally, I haven't used it but others may have and can add comments as to what it covers.

Colin

[Jan1954]

Thank you each for your suggestions. I will pass this information to my neighbour and see if I can pique her interest a bit more..... perhaps encourage her to use the computers at the library.

Mind you, as this is an area that I have not explored, it might prove rather interesting to do so.

Thank you all again.

[bwarnerok]

Let me know when you have some idea of the tribe. Because the US forced most of the tribes into reservations or territorities, just knoing where he was born might be helpful. If they are Cherokees or another of what we call the 5 civilized tribes... let me know as I'm in Oklahoma which was formally "Indian Territory" and the home of many of the tribes. Some of the tribes were called "civilized" because they had been educated and converted to organized religion by mostly methodist, quaker, or other missionaries with english ties.

[Jan1954]

Thank you, Betsy.

The tribes concerned are:

Chippewa
Pottawatomie

I did find a couple of web pages, the one at accessgenealogy.com/native/ being particularly interesting, and one which I shall probably be using a lot if she decides to proceed further.

[pippycat]

Jan

Seems the 2 tribes Potawatomi and Chippewa came from around the Great Lakes areas:
"Traditions speak of westward migration from Atlantic Seaboard through to Great lakes region until they came to Sault Ste Marie" (Ontario) where they split into 2 groups - 1 to Canada and the other to Michigan,Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Then there's different bands within the tribes
ie: Saginaw Chippewa, Bad River band of Lake Superior etc
Pokagon band of Potawatomi, Nottawaseppi Huron Poatawatomi etc..

Think your going to need to know at least an area where the person in question came from!


If you do start the hunt, Library of Michigan may be worth an email: librarian(at)michigan(dot)gov

- they have quite a lot of info and I found them very helpful the one time I tried tracing a Native American!

Rebecca

[Jan1954]

Thanks, Rebecca. That is very helpful.

It looks like I shall have quite a task on my hands if my neighbour decides that she would like to follow that trail.

Thanks again,

[bwarnerok]

As you know the US census burned in 1890 which causes a huge void in records... however, the Native Americans had their own census. It was also done by the US government but it was not kept in the same place and was done from the mid 1800s up into the 1900s. The best place to find these is on a site called Fold3.com . Yes, it's paid, but you can figure out how much you want to invest in it. It's great when researching for indians and military records.
Some of the Potawatomi ended up in Oklahoma, others stalled in Kansas but the Indian Census covered the entire US. In Oklahoma the tribes all have Casinos.. in fact, Oklahoma now has more slot machines than Las Vegas! The headquarters for the Potawatomi are in Shawnee in Pottawatomi County. see if you can't find that county genealogy site on rootsweb.org or contact the library in Shawnee and they should be able to give you a name of the local genealogy society who can give you an idea of what resources are available on this tribe.
I think the same sort of fact finding mission will work with the Chippewas - look in the county of their tribal nation headquarters...
Indian from the great lakes regions were often pushed downward. Some like the Ottawas and Shawnees were pushed down to the Kansas city area (look in kansas AND missouri) before being nudged further south to Oklahoma - many of these were born in Canada and/or northern Michigan. Prior to 1907, Oklahoma was known as Indian Territory.. with the western portion later being called Oklahoma Territory.
Because the county I live in was part of the Cherokee nation, our genenalogy society is loaded with information on that tribe but has little on the others. You should find this same concentration of records (old tribal rolls, bmds, land allotments, etc) in the county where the tribe was situated. Today, nearly every tribe has a casino which means they are getting quite wealth. Much of this money is going to try and reestablish their cultural heritage... Also.. people are wanting to be listed among the tribe in hopes of future payouts of money and services (healthcare, etc). Naturally genealogy is a bit part of this in order to prove or disprove -- so it's much easier now to research these tribes than it was 20 years ago.
betsy