Fort Bidwell Indian Agency (California)

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

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Paiute, Pit River and Digger

History
The Fort Bidwell Agency was established in 1898 as an Indian school. It soon was assigned agency duties for the Pit River and Paiute Indians of Modoc County, California. The school was closed in 1930 and the agency responsibilities were transferred to the Sacramento Agency in 1931. Fort Bidwell continued to operate as a subagency to Sacramento until at least 1940.

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 records of Fort Bidwell Agency have been transferred to the Pacific Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in San Francisco. These agency records include many administrative files which have few references to individual Indians. However, the following records identified by Archives records inventories, may have great value to the family historian:


 * Pupil register, 1908-1930
 * School census records, 1913-1930
 * Tribal census records, 1910-1929
 * Allotment records

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Fort Bidwell Agency, 1907-1931, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Roll 48, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, beginning with their.

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1915-1930. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, roll 137. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the FamilySearch Library and its FamilySearch centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

Records Available through the FamilySearch Library
Census Records 1910-1911,1913-1929, and school census 1913-1930. FS Library film: 976966 and 976967

Census Records 1915-1930. FS Library film: 576492