Greenville 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
Digger and other

History
The Greenville Agency was established in 1890 as an Indian school. It was purchased by the Government in 1897 and made an agency. It had jurisdiction over American Indians in Butte, Plumas, Sierra, and Yuba Counties, California. In 1918, all but Plumas County were transferred to the Reno Agency.

With the abolishment of the Roseburg Agency in 1918, the Indians in the Umpqua Valley in southern Oregon, and those living near Susanville and Redding, California, were added to the Greenville jurisdiction. In 1923, Greenville became a subagency of the Sacramento Agency.

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.

A few records of the Greenville Agency and School are in the Pacific Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in San Francisco, including:


 * Student registers, 1897-1906
 * Census records, 1903-1923
 * Individual student records, 1909-1923
 * Allotment records, 1910
 * And a variety of other administrative files, 1894-1923.

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Greenville Agency and School, 1907-1923, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Rolls 58-59, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City (their ).

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1916 thru 1923. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, roll 175. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the FamilySearch Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

Records Available through the FamilySearch Library

 * Census Records, 1916-1923. FS Library film: 576864
 * School Records, 1897-1911, 1915. FS Library film: 976964