Now to answer Steve's question...
BIA = Bureau of Indian Affairs.
CDIB = Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood.
DIB = Degree of Indian Blood.
Steve each tribe sets up its own requirements for being able to enroll as a tribal member.
I support that with all my being although I must admit I don't agree with several tribes limitations.:grumpy:
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma are the least restrictive with proof to a Cherokee ancestor's roll number being all that is required. I have seen BIA CDIB cards issued to Cherokee members with 1/256th degree of ndn blood or some such number. The Cherokee believe that one drop of blood makes you Cherokee. Don't get a nose bleed, you'll lose it all!
I've known a lot of people that tell me they have an old family member that says they are Blackfoot that are from the south. I don't know where the Blackfoot originated from but since probably the 1700's or so I think they've been a northern tribe. As Munk says,
Munk said:
"I guess you might contact the Blackfoot and ask them too.
They're in Browning MT."
What a lot of people don't know is that the term Blackfoot can also apply to the Freedmen whom were the freed slaves of color freed by the Cherokee and other tribes way back when. The Freedmen are recognized as Cherokee.
All I know is the proper way to trace back to Cherokee ancestory of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, but I'm reasonably sure it would apply to most tribes if not all that are open to enrollment.
IIRC the Eastern Cherokee have closed their rolls but if you can prove ancestory you have to be 1/4 CDIB to enroll, if you could.
To prove lineage takes a lot of time and money and is similar to breeding elephants....:grumpy:
Start with your wife, if she has her birth certificate her parents names will be on it. If she doesn't have it then you need to apply to the state where she was born and obtain it through their Bureau of Vital Statistics or whatever that states office that keeps track of such things is called.
If your wife's parents are still living get their birth cert's if not then get their death cert's and then their birth cert's.
Their parents names and race will be on them.
What you're trying to do is to trace back far enough that you come up with a birth or death cert that has "Indian" listed as the race.
You have to have each family member's death and birth certificate back to the individual that was ndn in order to prove lineage.
(You can save a lot of money by just tracing back the side where the ndn was supposed to be.)
Okay, now you have proven lineage, what to do next?
In a perfect world the birth or death cert will say what kind of ndn, but....
If you are so lucky then you can contact that tribe and see if their rolls are open, if so then you can make application, if not then you have documented proof that she is ndn for what that's worth, not much.
If you aren't so lucky then the next step is to start tracking census records. It will be much easier to do since you have the birth and death certs and there should be info on them as to where the people lived.
Hopefully as you track the census records you will hopefully at some point come across the one you need that tells what kind of ndn her ancestor was.
Then you can do as above and make application to that tribe if their rolls are open
There is one nice thing that may be too your advantage in this day and age. There's a lot of tribes that are opening their rolls and lowering the DIB that one has too be in order to enroll so that they can enlarge their membership in order to be able to qualify for federal requirements in order to build a casino or such.
Another good source of info is of course the Internet. I haven't had much luck but I have a cousin that has found a great deal of info on our family along with pics of old family members that I've heard of but never seen. Also the reason I haven't had much luck is that I haven't persued it for quite a while. More and more people are getting interested in their genealogy and getting online to search it out.
Also the software Family Tree is pretty good and not horribly expensive.
Good luck and if you have any questions I haven't answered just ask and I'll try to answer.
) Uncle Yvsa, et al... What is the best way to pursue info on my wife's NDN ancestry. For many years her family would joke that they were NDN, as every generation one or two of the folks would be dark skinned etc... but when pushed we got nothin'. We were back in Iowa a few years back for funeral and started asking questions of her shirt tail relatives. They broke out their family album and showed us black and white photos of I think it was her Great, Great Grandma. They said that she was Blackfoot by ancestry, and she looked 100%. The rest of the info is sketchy at best. Are there good resources that I can use to find out more info using her grandma's name, etc?
Her white husband ran off and left her and the kids to fend for themselves on the farm. I can't imagine being an NDN women with mixed kids got you too many bonus points around the turn of the century.
