NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES : DAWES ROLLS : 1896 APPLICATIONS AND THE CURTIS ACT : APPLICATIONS TAKEN 1898 - 1907

ARCHIVES GOV RESEARCH DAWES ROLLS 

Excerpt: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has custody of the Final Rolls of the Five Civilized Tribes, known as the Final Dawes Rolls, as well as related census cards, enrollment applications, land allotment jackets, and maps. These records are found in Record Group 48, Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, and in Record Group 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Final Dawes Rolls and related records are some of the most heavily used records at NARA for researching membership in the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

Note that these tribes were originally exempted but did end up being counted, and it's controversial.

Excerpt: Then, in 1895, Congress authorized a survey of Indian Territory, and in 1896 Congress authorized the Dawes Commission to add names to existing tribal rolls as a preliminary step to allotment. The Commission received more than 7,500 applications for enrollment and traveled throughout Indian Territory conducting hearings.

These applications, known as the 1896 Applications, were declared null and void two years later, when Congress passed an act on June 28, 1898, authorizing the Commission to proceed with enrollment and allotment for the Five Civilized Tribes without tribal consent. The 1898 act, known as the Curtis Act, also provided for the termination of the Five Civilized Tribes’ tribal governments. By 1902, each of the Five Tribes had negotiated and ratified an agreement that modified the terms of the Curtis Act and became the basis for enrollment and allotment.

With new guidelines in place, the Dawes Commission accepted enrollment applications from 1898 through 1907, with a handful accepted in 1914.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES : DON'T FORGET TO USE THESE FANTASTIC RESOURCES

Last fall (2024), I posted links to the National Archives of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. Now I'm going to provide you links to some European National Archives that are also useful. Databases do not have everything and I think some researchers have forgotten about the archives of nations.

Some countries are newer at having National Archive resources digitized. YOU WILL WANT TO INTERACT WITH THEIR ARCHIVISTS IF YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS and perhaps, the old fashioned way, send for copies or pay them to research for you.  Contacting an archivist is usually possible through e-mail. Some will ask you to set up an account, others not.

I use Google translate function when the site does not provide language options!

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THE ARCHIVES and LIBRARIES OF NATIONS : SOME RESEARCH NOTES

Each country's archives we visited so far have a different point of view about what is important, are at a different stage in the progress of digitalization, have different levels of help from archivists and librarians to the general public who are employed there, and the collections may specialize or have have categories that are different one from the other.

I believe strongly that historical research is important to any Genealogy quest. Research the location by city, county, country - watch how borders and governments (including Kings, Queens, and noble rule) and seek out maps too. If your ancestors have taken part of any historical event (such as the founding or development of the city) there may be biographies of them in history books. 

NATIONAL ARCHIVES : DON'T FORGET TO USE THESE FANTASTIC RESOURCES

Back in the day, when I started teaching genealogy at my local public library, the Internet was fairly new. The newest computers had been installed and people were just learning to use the Internet and fewer people had purchased home computers so to the library they went. Fewer people had cell phones and those came with Internet capacity.  I didn't.  I actually resisted cell phones for some time for all the reasons people do to this day.  At the time I provided students with lists of web sites and the actual http addresses.... I must've had a hundred or so bookmarked...

Today I think people do word searches to bring up web sites rather than the belabored input of the https.  I've done genealogy research using a cell phone, especially during Covid-19 closures but I didn't print out and then the cell phone died...

Back in the day there were many genealogy oriented start ups. These days certain ones are dominating.  So it's easy to feel compelled to use those one, two, or three or four.  However, I think people are failing to consider where the ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL comes from that the databases use.  These are usually governmental; federal, state, county, and city. Next come church or religious records.

I have an account with the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES - NARA. (The Library of Congress is also helpful.) And the National Archives of few other countries. 

Some countries are newer at having National Archive resources digitized. YOU WILL WANT TO INTERACT WITH THEIR ARCHIVISTS IF YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS and perhaps, the old fashioned way, send for copies or pay them to research for you.  This is usually possible through e-mail. Some will ask you to set up an account, others not.  (I know! More accounts and passwords to keep track of...)

For the next few weeks I'm going to link to some of the National Archives of other countries that you should consider when researching - especially when you find that the genealogy databases DO NOT HAVE EVERYTHING.  And they do not.

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES MAP ROOM

The National Archives of the United States, in regard to the 1950 census, has posted a number of videos that are basic mini classes to help you understand that census.  You can ask the archivists at the map room, they may be able to help you research using their historical maps to help you locate other places in time.

Excerpt:

A census enumeration district was an area that could be covered by a single enumerator, or census taker, in one census period. Enumeration districts varied in size from several city blocks in densely populated urban areas to an entire county in sparsely populated rural areas. This presentation will focus on locating and using census enumeration district maps, with an emphasis on maps from the 1950 census.

1950 CENSUS WILL BE RELEASED TOMORROW!

Can't wait!  

Click on the tab  Genealogy Help - 1950 Census to bring up the series!

CENSUS WORKERS for the 2020 CENSUS

I got a call from a friend, asking me if I was going to apply to be a census worker for the 2020 census or volunteer for the 1950 census project. These projects are going to be a HUGE endeavor, the 2020 many times more HUGE than the 2010.  The population expanded rapidly. It was the post World War II baby boom. Suburbs were being built and Americans were expanding out from living in cities. GI's were using the low interest mortgage rates for veterans to be home owners.  Stay at home moms were financially possible. Some of us are going to read this 1950 census in 2020 (or thereafter) and just wish we were living back in the day.

Genealogists get very excited about census and census is called "The backbone of American genealogy."

I have such memories of the 2010 reveal. The NATIONAL ARCHIVES SITE was not functioning completely or well for a while as people rushed to use it. Of course other database owners attempted to have theirs up better and faster.  Indexing lagged behind. Some pages were missing or out of order. I used the National Archives site at a few libraries including my local LDS Family History Center to get in there with my list of people who had not appeared on 1940.

These mix ups and frustrations one also experienced when the Ellis Island ship manifests site first went up.  I remember finding ways to get what I needed, ways to mine the data.  

I spent hours reading 1940 census pages one after another because they were not indexed yet with mixed results. I still wish I were turning microfilm rather than clicking the mouse till I need a forefinger joint replacement. 

I've learned a bit about the data on census and why looking at the name of the census taker can be a good thing. For instance I noticed German surnames of census takers associated with assignments of going into Polish and Hungarian neighborhoods. The language the census taker speaks may reflect the spelling of the surnames.

So pre-2010 of course I applied to be a census worker.  I took a class and the test and got an A.  Soon I got a call asking if I speak Spanish.  I do not.  I didn't get the job.  They wanted people to be in their own neighborhoods and mine at the time probably had a significant percentage of Spanish speakers. I met the man who did get the job.  He was frustrated.  He said that he had to go back to a building three times because he was having trouble being let in. People were not answering their doors. After three tries his supervisor would go with him and then would make the building manager let them in. Overall they thought they were encountering illegal residents who did not want to be on census or talk to anyone governmental. Probably true.

So I suspect in our political climate (i.e "Build the Wall") that the 2020 census next year will be fraught with such issues.  WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF CENSUS.  It's a statistical analysis that helps our government understand the population and these statistics are often cited when our officials are looking for causes or funding.

Although I do not believe in the past the census information was shared with the INS (or equivalent) people who are not citizens may worry.

Think of the past census, say taken of those Ellis Island immigrants in which census takers asked people if they were citizens, if they were aliens, if they were in process, and what year they were naturalized.  There is a historical precedent for asking residents about their immigration status. Sometimes when I cannot find people who left a ship on a census I wonder if they hid out for the same reasons as the people do in recent history.

C 2019  All Rights Reserved  including Internet and International Rights.  This post has been edited and expanded July 2019

THE UNITED STATES CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

THE UNITED STATES CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS  : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

DID YOUR GRANDFATHER or another MALE RELATIVE JOIN THE CCC's as a teenager in the 1930's (GREAT DEPRESSION ERA leading into World War II era) in order to learn skills and most importantly SEND MONEY HOME? 

Not just anyone could sign up.  This was a RELIEF PROGRAM (which I sure wish was still going on today) that existed from 1933 to 1942 in the US.  It was part of President Roosevelt's "New Deal" and a man had to be 18-23 years old (eventually they took men 17-28 years old) who were unmarried an unemployed.

CCC LEGAGY. ORG - RESEARCH includes links to forms to send away to the right National Archives (Saint Louis) and information on CAMP LISTS.

So OK, the difficult has been (hopefully in the past) that men who joined the CCC's were sent to various camps, not necessarily close to home. The goal was to SEND MONEY HOME and LEARN SKILLS. The 1940 census might be of help to some of you, but don't count on it. I've personally been unable to use a database to search that census for CCC members I'm looking for. One of the reasons is that a typical participant stayed in the program for 6 months and could reenlist a total of 4 times for a 2 year stint.  This wasn't a branch of the military, but there was a sort of boot camp at first to see if a person was physically fit before they started doing a lot of hard physical labor, like building walls or planting trees to reforest a burned out area. A person could be transferred around to where there were work projects. Many men from poor families dropped out of high school to join or first did the CCC's and then enlisted in the military. There were separate camps for veterans and Native Americans.

Today when you go to many parks, you will find stone walls and stairways that are still in use that CCC workers built. (Such is the case in some of the Santa Monica Mountains here in Southern California.)

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