User:Hbileen/Sandbox

How to Find Native American Ancestors Using the U.S. Census Records and Indian Census Rolls

This article is primarily for novice family history researchers and aspiring genealogists who are researching their Native American ancestry. However, it can be beneficial for all who desire to find their native ancestors by searching the U.S. Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940 and the U.S. census collections.

As with any genealogical research, it is best to always go from the known to the unknown. Known information will provide clues that will help with the research plan before beginning the actual research. This preliminary background research is important for any family history research; but critical for Native American ancestry research! Therefore, gather family records, oral history, traditions, and memorabilia, which will provide information about the Native American ancestor. Find out the ancestor's tribal membership, and if he had a native name(s) in earlier years before Native Americans received their American name. Become familiar with the location, geography, and history of your ancestor's tribe and residence(s), both on and off the Native American reservation during his or her lifetime. While gathering information about the ancestor, gather information about his parents and siblings too. Finally, record when, where, and what was found onto a research log, family group record, and pedigree chart. Identify any missing information by evaluating all the possible evidences gathered. These holes will help the researcher determine and select records that may provide the needed information.

Part of this preliminary research or background research is searching the census records in the locations where your ancestor lived whether it is off or on the Native American reservation. Study the changes in the jurisdictions on each level of the federal, state, and county governments. In early 1800s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established by the federal government to oversee Native American matters. Many Native American tribes were forced to migrate. Learn the history of the ancestor's tribe and the geography of where the tribe lived.

U.S. Census Records Collection

Census records, particularly 1900 to most recent, provide a great deal of information about Native American individuals and their families. The kinds of information on the U.S. censuses vary from census year to census year. As an example, the kinds of information that could be gleaned from the U.S. census records are as follow: when and where ancestors resided; their economic status; their neighbors; their gender, age, relationship to head of household, and marital status; their occupations, education, military service, and place of birth, and sometimes degree of Indian blood. In addition, evaluation of censuses from different years may reveal the ancestor's migration pattern in United States.

This section of the article will explain how to navigate to the U.S. Federal Census, 1790-1940 on FamilySearch.org and how to navigate to where the Native American ancestor lived based on information gathered from the preliminary research or background research. There are a couple of ways to search the Native American ancestor on the U.S. census. The easiest way is by entering the ancestor's American first and last name along with a birth year and the state of residence for a particular year. Some heads of families and some family members had an American name. For reasons of employment or school, their names were changed from a native name to an American name. Therefore, if his American name is entered, his name may appear in the search result. Also, one could search the Native American ancestor by the American name and still bring up the entire family whether they had native or American names. However, if the ancestor has a native name, the census records will require browsing from page to page. The enumerators who recorded the native names spelled them phonetically with English letters as they heard it. Consequently, each enumerator would spell the native name differently as they heard it. In addition, a researcher would spell it differently than how the enumerator spelled the native name. As a result of these spelling difficulties, it would become advisable to use the second way to search the Native American ancestor on the U.S. census - browsing. Pull up the selected census in FamilySearch Records. Scroll below the Search Collection fields to the View Images in this Collecton and click on the Browse link. This type of search will require you to know the Enumeration District (ED); therefore, a knowledge of the local geography would be beneficial. The computer will bring up image up image 1 of the district. The research will then browse through each page looking for familiar family names. (Each ED usually contains a manageable quantity of images.)

How to Navigate to the U.S. Census

Some sections of the article are going to be a hands-on experience in navigating to an actual family census record. For the purpose of this article, we will be searching for my Native American paternal grandparents. In the URL field at the top of the computer screen, type FamilySearch.org and enter. On the FamilySearch homepage, sign in or sign up for a free personal account. To search the U.S. census online, it is not necessary to sign in. However, if the researcher's family tree is online on FamilySearch Family Tree, it will be necessary to sign in so that when the document is found for the ancestor it can be easily attached to the person's detail page.

There are several ways to navigate to the collection, U.S. Federal Census, 1790-1940, in FamilySearch.org. For the purpose of this article, we will search the Historical Records. To begin, click o the link Search at the top main menu on the homepage. In the down menu, click on the link Records. In the middle of the page and under the heading "Find a Collection," type United States Census. A drop-down menu will appear with a list of U.S. census. Select and lick on the link "United States Census, 1930."

1930 U.S. Census

Once in the 1930 U.S. census and on the next page, enter the ancestor's American name, Jim Puggy, along with other data: Sex: Male, Race: Native American , Marital Status: Married , Residence Place: New Mexico ; and then search. There should be two search results. The search result is Jim Puggy who is a brother to the head of the household in the United States census, 1930. His birth was in 1898 in New Mexico. His place of residence in 1930 was in Precinct 13, San Juan County, New Mexico, United States. The search results also list some of the people in the household.

In my preliminary research since 1970s, Jim Puggy's name was never mentioned in any family discussions. In the Navajo culture, particularly parents who were born in the 1940s and previous generations, it was forbidden to speak of deceased members of the family and ancestors. In the 1970s, I was fortunate to receive original documents which had my paternal grandparents' names on them