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Blog Posts on Native American Records and Research
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Featured Blog Posts
  • Rose Buchanan
    Eastern Cherokee Census Rolls, 1835–1884
    over 1 year ago
  • Cody White
    Get to Know Your Office of Indian Affairs Forms: The 5-138, Descriptive Statement of Children
    10 months ago
  • Rose Buchanan
    Accessing the Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1881–1907
    over 1 year ago
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  • “Special Reports” in the Guion Miller Roll Records

    Rose Buchanan
    Rose Buchanan
    By Rose Buchanan, Archivist and Subject Matter Expert for Native American Related Records The Guion Miller Roll and related applications are useful sources for tracing Eastern Cherokee ancestry. But what does it mean when your ancestor’s Guion ...
    • 13 Jul 2023
  • How to Start Researching Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Probate Case Files at the National Archives in Washington, DC

    Rose Buchanan
    Rose Buchanan
    By Rose Buchanan, Archivist and Subject Matter Expert for Native American Related Records What are BIA probate case files? Since 1910, the BIA has been involved in probating Native American estates in which the deceased person had federal trust asset...
    • 27 Jun 2023
  • Get to Know Your Office of Indian Affairs Forms: The 5-192, Application for Enrollment in a Non-Reservation School

    Cody White
    Cody White
    For over 70 years a mainstay form found in non-reservation student case files is an application, typically the 5-192 in its many iterations but on occasion another specialized form. Today’s blog will dive into these and explore what informatio...
    • 12 Jun 2023
  • Get to Know Your Office of Indian Affairs Forms: The 5-138, Descriptive Statement of Children

    Cody White
    Cody White
    From the opening of the first non-reservation boarding school in 1879 (one of the several types of schools described in this previous blog entry) through at least 1907, the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) expected agents and superintendents to collect...
    • 31 Oct 2022
  • Accessing the Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1881–1907

    Rose Buchanan
    Rose Buchanan
    By Rose Buchanan, Archivist and Subject Matter Expert for Native American Related Records As the National Archives continues to digitize our microfilm collection, more records related to Native Americans are becoming available online in the National...
    • 9 Aug 2022
  • Eastern Cherokee Census Rolls, 1835–1884

    Rose Buchanan
    Rose Buchanan
    By Rose Buchanan, Archivist and Subject Matter Expert for Native American Related Records As the National Archives continues to digitize our microfilm collection, more records related to Native Americans are becoming available online in the National...
    • 24 May 2022
  • Birth and Death on the Reservation as seen in Bureau of Indian Affairs Records

    Cody White
    Cody White
    (Authors note: the following post discusses, in part, death related records of individuals along with examples.)Nearly 99 years ago, on October 10, 1922, Hairy Moccasin, a farmer on the Crow Reservation and one the then last living Custer scouts, pas...
    • 9 Aug 2021
  • Office of Indian Affairs Superintendency Records, 1819-1878

    Cody White
    Cody White
    The National Archives continues to digitize and make available online previously microfilmed collections. In the last few months this has included several collections of superintendency records, dating back to the early 19th century. The first three ...
    • 5 Apr 2021
  • Types of Bureau of Indian Affairs Schools

    Cody White
    Cody White
    When Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools are discussed, often the infamous off-reservation boarding schools, such as the Carlisle Institute, are typically the first to come to mind. However, the BIA ran several different types of schools, so hopef...
    • 20 Jan 2021
  • Exploring American Indian Life Through the Office of Indian Affairs Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, 1910-1938

    Cody White
    Cody White
    The National Archives continues to digitize and make available online previously microfilmed collections. One of the most recent collections to go live, the Office of Indian Affairs Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, is a rich...
    • 30 Nov 2020
  • Introducing the Bureau of Indian Affairs Photographs Finding Aid!

    Jason Clingerman
    Jason Clingerman
    Today, we are pleased to announce that the National Archives launched a new web-based finding aid featuring digitized historical photographs from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) records in Record Group 75. For the first time, you can explore digit...
    • 19 Nov 2020
  • Native American Treaties Explorer

    History Hub Administrator
    History Hub Administrator
    Treaties ExplorerHundreds of Native American treaties have been scanned and are freely available online, for the first time, through the National Archives Catalog. Also, in partnership with The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC), these treaties...
    • 15 Oct 2020
  • Native American Activism on the airwaves with the Seeing Red Radio Archive

    Ryan Flahive
    Ryan Flahive
    Native American Activism on the airwaves with the Seeing Red Radio Archiveby Julie FiveashThe Archives at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM is home to the “Seeing Red Radio Archive,” a collection of 89, 1/4&#822...
    • 10 Aug 2020
  • 1920's Photographs of American Indian Families in National Archives Holdings

    Cody White
    Cody White
    Early photographs are rare enough for most families, even more so for those living on reservations and allotted tribal lands across the west. This makes the Bureau of Indian Affairs Industrial Surveys, taken nationwide to document family's living and...
    • 6 Jul 2020
  • Diving into CCC Indian Division Records

    Cody White
    Cody White
    87 years ago this month President Roosevelt issued an executive order kicking off the then just passed Emergency Conservation Work Act. The rest, as they say, is history as research into ECW and CCC programs, projects, and enrollees continues today b...
    • 17 Apr 2020
  • “Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824-1881" - Live and in the Catalog!

    Cody White
    Cody White
    The National Archives has embarked on a project to digitize microfilm series and get them into our online Catalog, where researchers can browse, bounce around, or zero in on particular sections throughout hundreds of microfilm rolls in the comfort of...
    • 27 Mar 2020
  • Digitized Native American Reservation Records: Text

    Lauren Van Zandt
    Lauren Van Zandt
    The National Archives has digitized thousands of documents, images, and movies related to Native American history and culture.  This is the fifth in a series of blogs highlighting the records available online through the National Archives catalo...
    • 27 Sep 2017
  • Tracing Winema

    Cherkea Howery
    Cherkea Howery
    After reading the Prologue article about Winema Riddell, a Modoc woman who acted as a mediator for the US government, I used the Innovation Hub to make her pension available on the National Archives Catalog. While we don’t know how many pension...
    • 15 Aug 2017
  • Digitized Native American Reservation Records: Photos

    Lauren Van Zandt
    Lauren Van Zandt
    The National Archives has digitized thousands of documents, images, and movies related to Native American history and culture.  This is the fourth in a series of blogs highlighting the records available online through the National Archives catal...
    • 11 Aug 2017
  • Definitions of Indian and Tribe

    MaryFrances Ronan
    MaryFrances Ronan
    Definitions of Indian and Indian TribeIndian Reorganization Act of 1934 allowed people of Indian descent who were not members of federally recognized tribes to apply for recognition as an Indian.  The IRA also allowed tribes to set up their own ...
    • 12 Jul 2017
  • You Want to Find Out About an Indian Ancestor

    MaryFrances Ronan
    MaryFrances Ronan
    A generation ago the BIA used to tell people to get in touch with the National Archives and give them the name and tribe and birthdate of an individual and we would look the name up on the Indian Census Rolls. We don’t do that anymore; we don&#...
    • 10 Jul 2017
  • Native American Films Available Online

    Lauren Van Zandt
    Lauren Van Zandt
    The National Archives has digitized thousands of documents, images, and movies related to Native American history and culture.  This is the third in a series of blogs highlighting the records available online through the National Archives catalo...
    • 10 Jul 2017
  • California Enrollments - Background

    MaryFrances Ronan
    MaryFrances Ronan
    California Enrollments  -  backgroundIn 1928 Congress permitted California Indians to bring suit against the US for lands taken from them. They were defined as Indians residing in the State of California on June 1, 1852, and their descendan...
    • 7 Jul 2017
  • Researching the Indian Fee Patent Files

    MaryFrances Ronan
    MaryFrances Ronan
    Allotments were made and “trust” patents were issued by the GLO, which kept the land in trust for the individual for a period of 25 years after which he could sell the land for himself. Prior to that time, he/she could petition the Secret...
    • 7 Jul 2017
  • Researching the Indian Allotment Files

    MaryFrances Ronan
    MaryFrances Ronan
    Allotment records started in the early 1800s with some of the treaties. Lands were allotted to certain persons under the provisions of the treaty. In 1887 the General Allotment Act was passed and tribes gradually had their lands surveyed and divided ...
    • 7 Jul 2017
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