Crow Indian Agency (Montana)

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

The Crow Indian Agency is the administrative office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Crow Reservation in south-central Montana. Its supervising office in the Bureau of Indian Affairs is the Billings Area Office.

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Mountain Crow, River Crow

History
The Crow Agency was established in 1869 for the Mountain Crow Indians of Montana. The River Crows gradually also came under this agency.

Agents and Appointment Dates
Capt. Erskine M. Camp June 2, 1869, Fellows D. Pease September 9, 1870, James Wright July 7, 1873, Dexter E. Clapp October 7, 1874, Lewis H. Carpenter April 26, 1876, George W. Frost August 2, 1878 did not serve, and Augustus R. Keller November 4, 1878

Records
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value (for the tribe and tribal members) were created by and maintained by the agencies.

Many of the historical records of this agency are housed in the National Archives Rocky Mountain Region (Denver), Colorado. . Records in the collection in the agency records which may be of assistance to the genealogist include:


 * Annuity payrolls, 1892-1915
 * Vouchers and schedules documenting payments to individual Indians, 1916- 60
 * Allotment registers, 1907-22
 * Heirship project worksheets, 1940-41
 * Copies of Indian wills, 1911-39
 * Records pertaining to heirship cases, 1900-41
 * Closed estate case files, 1958-89
 * Tract books, 1884-1907, with index, ca. 1907
 * Census rolls and enumerations, 1886-1953
 * Family registers, 1902-17
 * Registers of births and deaths, 1890-1921
 * School censuses, 1906-43
 * Monthly school attendance reports, 1929-32
 * Student case files, 1929-48.

Many more records of lesser genealogical value are also in this collection. Some of these agency records, 1887-1952, including census, annuity, allotment, heirship, wills, enrollment, armed forces enrollees, have been microfilmed and are available through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Reports of Inspection of the Field Jurisdictions of the Office of Indian Affairs, 1873-1900 have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of Microcopy Number M1070. The reports for Crow Agency, 1881-1900, are on rolls 8-9 of that Microcopy set. Copies are available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ).

The 1900 federal census included population schedules for the Crow Indian Reservation. The census includes the non-Indian employees of the Crow Agency, as well as many pages of Indian Population Schedules for the native population of the Reservation. They are recorded as District 209, Crow Agency, in Custer County, Montana.

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Crow Agency, 1907-1935, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Rolls 30-31, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, beginning with their.

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1891-1895, 1897-1908, and from 1912 thru 1940. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 79 thru 86. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.