5 Clues You May Have Native American Ancestry
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American Indian Genealogy Cheat Sheet
Research Native American ancestors with essential history; tips for finding old records; charts of major Indian tribes; best websites, books and other resources, and more.
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Free Native American Resources from
Family Tree Magazine
Researching Native American Ancestors
Tracing Ancestors Among the Five Largest Indigenous Tribes
Does your family lore contain tales of Native ancestors? These tips will help you find your ancestors who belonged to one of the United States’ five largest indigenous tribes today: Navajo, Cherokee, Sioux, Chippewa and Choctaw.
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How to Research Your Native American Genealogy
Does your family lore tell of an American Indian ancestor? Use these essential resources to trace your family’s Native American genealogy.
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The Do’s and Don’ts of Respectful Native American Research
Researching Native American ancestry can be a rich and rewarding experience. That said, it is important to be respectful throughout the entire process. Here’s a guide to help you approach your research with passion, reverence and empathy.
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Genealogy Q&A: Researching Native American Ancestors
Are you trying to confirm or research Native American ancestors? Our genealogy experts answer your toughest research questions.
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How to Apply for Cherokee Nation Citizenship
If you have documented your Cherokee ancestors and you’d like to apply for Cherokee Nation citizenship, here’s how to do it.
READ MOREAmerican Indian Genealogy Records
Dawes Rolls: Find Your Native American Ancestors (3 Quick Tips)
Understand how to read the Dawes Rolls to find your Native American heritage.
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How to Find American Indian Records on Ancestry.com
Get the most out of Ancestry.com when searching for American Indian Records with these detailed tips and guidelines.
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AccessGenealogy: A Quick Video Tour
Here’s a quick overview of what’s available on free genealogy website AccessGenealogy. Boasting “the largest collection of free genealogy for your United States research,” this site is strongest on Native American history.
WATCH NOWNative American Genealogy Research Resources (General)
WEBSITES | IMAGES | BOOKS and PUBLICATIONS
WEBSITES
Access Genealogy: Indian Tribes of the United States
Access Genealogy: Native American History and Genealogy: Search indexes to many removal rolls, including the Trail of Tears Roll, and databases of hard-to-find records, as well as read a beginner’s guide to American Indian genealogy.
American Indian Tribal Directory
American Indians: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications
Bureau of Indian Affairs: Tribal Leaders Directory
Department of the Interior: Trace Indian Ancestry
FamilySearch Wiki: Indigenous Peoples of North America – A Beginner’s Guide
Fold3.com–Native American Records: Search or browse images of 77,000 Dawes enrollment cards and 883,000 Dawes packets, as well as ratified Indian treaties and Indian census rolls, 1885 to 1940.
Indian and Colonial Research Center
Maps of Native American Indians by State
National Archives and Records Administration: Dawes Rolls database includes more than 100,000 names of people in the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898 to 1914. An index search reveals blood degree and census card number, to order additional records.
National Museum of the American Indian
Native American Genealogy: Reconnecting With Your American Indian Heritage
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Native Languages of the Americas: List of Native American Indian Tribes and Languages
Oklahoma Historical Society: Search the 1890 Oklahoma territorial census, applications for enrollment in the Five Civilized Tribes, land lottery records, Smith’s First Directory of Oklahoma and school reports from Dawes Commission records.
RootsWeb: Native American Resources
“Snakes & Scribes: The Dawes Commission and the Enrollment of the Creeks”
The State Historical Society of Missouri
U.S. Federally Non-Recognized Indian Tribes–Index by State
IMAGES
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection: More than 2,300 photographs are searchable by subject, title or description.
Denver Public LibraryHistory of the American West 1860-1920: A collection of 30,000 images, taken from 1860 to 1920, illustrates the lives of American Indians from more than 40 tribes living west of the Mississippi River.
Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian: More than 2,000 keyword-searchable images that span 1907 to 1930 and cover 80 tribes from states west of the Mississippi.
Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains: This database of photos, drawings, maps and artwork represents 10 major tribes. Search by subject, date, name, tribe, location or creator.
Labriola National American Indian Data Center: Browse 270 of missionary Augustine Schwarz’s photos of the Pima, Papagos and Apache peoples.
Online Archive of California: This vast archive includes 3,000 American Indian photographs from the C. Hart Merriam Collection.
Wisconsin Historical Society Native American Portraits: Browse 182 images or search by keyword.
BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS*
American Indian Archival Material: A Guide to Holdings in the Southeast compiled by Ron Chepesiuk and Arnold Shankman (Greenwood Press)
Atlas of the North American Indian by Carl Waldman (Checkmark Books)
Cherokee Connections by Myra Vanderpool Gormley (Genealogical Publishing Co.)
The Churches and the Indian Schools, 1888-1912 by Francis Pual Prucha (University of Nebraska Press)
The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands (Volume 123) by D.S. Otis (University of Oklahoma Press)
Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes by Carl Waldman (Checkmark Books)
Everyday Life Among the American Indians by Candy Vyvey Moulton (Writer’s Digest Books)
The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes by Sharon Malinowsli (Gale/Cengage Learning)
A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your Immigrant & Ethnic Ancestors by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack (Betterway Books)
Guide to American Indian Resource Materials in Great Plains Repositories by Joseph G. Svoboda (Center for Great Plains)
Guide to Catholic Indian Mission and School Records in Midwest Repositories by Philip C. Ban tin with Mark G. Thiel (Marquette University)
Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives, 3rd edition edited by Anne Bruner Eales and Robert M. Kvasnicka (National Archives and Record Service)
Guide to Records in the National Archives of the United States Relating to American Indians by Edward E. Hill (National Archives and Records Administration)
The Handbook of the American Indians: North of Mexico edited by Frederick Webb Hodge (Greenwood Publishing Group)
Handbook of North American Indians (multiple volumes) edited by William C. Sturtevant and Bruce G. Trigger (Smithsonian Institute)
How to Research American Indian Blood Lines: A Manual on Indian Genealogical Research by Cecelia Svinth Carpenter (Heritage Quest)
Index to Old Wars Pension Files, 1875-1926 by Virgil D. White (National Historical Publishing Co.)
Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians by Grant Foreman (University of Oklahoma Press)
Indian Treaties, 1778-1883 by Charles Joseph Kappler (Amereon Ltd)
The Indian Tribes of North America by John R. Swanton (Genealogical Publishing Co.)
Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia edited by Mary B. Davis (Garland Publishing)
Native American Genealogical Sourcebook by Paula K. Byers (Gale/Cengage Learning)
Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828-1982: Bibliography, Publishing Record, and Holdings edited by James P. Danky (Greenwood Press)
Preliminary Inventory 163 Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs by Edward Hill (National Archives and Records Administration)
The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, 3rd edition by Loretto Dennis Scucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Ancestry): See chapter 19, “Tracking Native American Family History.”
A Student’s Guide to Native American Genealogy by. E. Barrie Kavasch (Greenwood Press)
Tracing Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes: Southeastern Indians Prior to Removal by Rachal Mills Lennon (Genealogical Publishing Co.)
*FamilyTreeMagazine.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. It provides a means for this site to earn advertising fees, by advertising and linking to Amazon and affiliated websites.
FAMILY TREE PODCAST
Researching Your Native American Ancestors: Episode 17
Searching for Native American roots? Jim Warren offers advice from his article in the November 2009 issue.
LISTEN NOWNative American Tribe Resources
(Divided by Territory)
compiled by Nancy Hendrickson
NORTHEAST | GREAT BASIN, INTERIOR PLATEAU and NORTHWEST COAST | SOUTHEAST | SOUTHWEST and CALIFORNIA | PLAINS, PRAIRIES and WOODLANDS
NORTHEAST
Territory
Area bordered by Canada on the north, Great Lakes on the west, Tennessee River to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east
Tribes
Abenaki, Algonkin, Cayuga, Delaware, Huron, Iroquois, Kickapoo, Mohawk, Narraganset, Penobscot, Ottawa, Oneida, Seneca, Shawnee, Tuscarora, Wampanoag
Haudenosaunee/The Six Nations/Iroquois Confederacy: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora
Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs
Traditional Abenaki of Mazipskwik and Related Bands
GREAT BASIN, INTERIOR PLATEAU and NORTHWEST COAST
Territory
Western half of Wyoming, Montana and Colorado; Washington, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho
Tribes
Bannock, Cayuse, Chinook, Clatsop, Duwamish, Flathead, Haida, Kutenai, Klamath, Nez Perce, Paiute, Shoshone, Spokane, Suquamish, Tillamook, Ute, Wenatchee, Wishram, Yakama
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (Paiute)
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Eastern Shore Tribe: Shoshone Reservation
SOUTHEAST
Territory
Area bordered by Kentucky and Virginia on the north, Mississippi River to the west, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic on the south and east
Tribes
The Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole), Alabama, Apalachee, Catawba, Natchez, Quapaw, Yamasee
TNGenWeb: Beginning Your Cherokee Research
SOUTHWEST and CALIFORNIA
Territory
Most of Arizona and New Mexico, part of western and southern Texas, California
Tribes
Apache, Cahuilla, Chumash, Havasupai, Miwok, Modoc, Mojave, Navajo, Papago, Pima, Yaqui, Yavapai and Yuma, plus the Pueblo tribes of the Hopi, Laguna, Taos and Zuni
Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria
Hopi Cultural Preservation Office
“Roll of Cherokee Freedmen” (Kern-Clifton Roll, January 16, 1867): This is a census of freedmen of the Cherokee Nation and their descendants.
Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians
PLAINS, PRAIRIES and WOODLANDS
Territory
Extended from Canada almost to Mexico; Southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba; eastern Montana, Wyoming and Colorado; extreme eastern part of New Mexico; North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas; Woodlands bounded by Lake Michigan and Lake Superior on the east, Missouri on the west; includes Illinois and parts of Wisconsin and Iowa
Tribes
Arapaho, Arikara, Assiniboine, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Comanche, Crow, Fox, Illinois, Kansa, Kiowa, Mandan, Menominee, Omaha, Osage, Pawnee, Sac, Sioux, Winnebago
Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee
Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes
Great Lakes Inter-tribal Council, Inc.
“The Illini Confederation: Lords of the Mississippi Valley”
Official Website…of the Great Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nation (The Great Souix Nation)
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
