How to Find Native Americans in Your Family Tree
Finding your Native American ancestry can be challenging, but with persistence and patience you can make real progress. The Federal government, tribal governments, and genealogists and genealogical resources offer resources that can help you to trace your heritage. All of them agree that finding your roots is not the impossible dream that it might seem at first glance.
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Instructions
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Finding Native American Heritage
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Assess what you know already by writing it down. If you suspect that you have a Native American ancestor, write down why you think that. Is it a story that your aunt told you when you were a child? Getting these things on paper is vital, not only to know where you stand, but to preserve the information for future generations.
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Interview all living relatives that you have contact with, and find those who are lost. If you know the story that Aunt Millie was related to Black Hawk, others in the family might know it and other details that might be vital to your search. Record everything, not just the details about ancestors you suspect belonged to a tribe.
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Collect copies of all documents, birth certificates, marriage records, enlistment records, death certificates. If someone else in the family has documents, ask if you can copy them. People often horde records, memories and artifacts. They may feel threatened if you ask for the originals, so get a camera and a scanner and convince them that you want to preserve the information, not take the heirlooms.
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Consult "Guide to Tracing Your Native American Ancestry," published by the US Department of the Interior, to help you start research on your own (See Source 1). Contrary to popular opinion, the Bureau of Indian Affairs does not help citizens trace their genealogy. That is up to you. The guide flatly states that using a computer is necessary, given the large number of sources available online. Ancestry.com is a good online resource as a start.
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Contact the tribe that you suspect your ancestor belonged to. The Federal government provides a Tribal Leaders Directory (See Source 2). It lists, by region, the tribes that reside there, along with contact information. Be ready to share the information that you have found with them to assist them in the quest.
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Consult the Dawes Rolls, a commission established in the late 1800s to record tribal membership. If you have the name of an ancestor, you can see if they are on the list. USGenNet is the non-profit company that publishes the rolls (See Source 3). The rolls cover Native Americans from "Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and Chickasaw Indians."
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Hire a genealogist who specializes in tracing Native American ancestry, if you can afford it. Fees will vary, and are sometimes negotiable. Hiring a professional often saves time, and it can give you more documentation to prove your descent. Having your basic research above done already will save you time and money. You can search the Association of Professional Genealogists by region for a professional in your area at their web site (See Source 4).
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