I am trying to find information on my American Indian background...?

Question

Okay, I have alot of American Indian in my blood, like 6 diff. tribes... I have tried to look up certain things about my relatives and ancestors but I have no luck. Also, to try and find a couple of my relatives. If you all have any good sites

I could try and look at, that would be "awesome"... :-) Thanks

Answer 1

go to any indian american news paper .

Answer 2

www.rootsweb.com

has a great tutorial on starting to research your ancestry.  It is completely impossible to verify Native American lineage/ancestry, if you don't even have the names, dates, or places about them.  So.. you have to come back to your basics, THEN see if the facts are likely to match with Native records.

Here's the catch.. there are thousands of sites where you possibly will find your family members.  You have to know something to start with, in order to figure out which are going to be good for you.  Example.. you don't know much about grandpa, who died in 1984 in Arizona. With those pieces, now you can be explicit to ask how to get his death certificate, what cemetery he could be in, and if he was born before 1930 (which means he was probably in the census records).  On the death certificate.. that is where you will find the names of his parents, his place of birth. Once you know about him, you can move to each of his parents (and understand.. each of them will be different sources, depending on their facts).

Of course, the one thing that I find the hardest to explain.. is the idea that your ancestry will NOT all be online. Some will be at the courthouse in Texas. Or the library in Missouri. It all depends on how serious you are about finding the information.  If the relatives you mention are living.. they are often LESS likely to be online, since live persons do have the right to privacy.

One other site I offer is-

http://www.cyndislist.com/beginner.htm

This is just her beginner's area.  Browsing the rest of the site gives you some idea of how many different topics are out there, and more reason why you need to know what you want, before you can figure where to find it.

Answer 3

Have you tried rootsweb.com? They have a search engine  where you can type in your ancestors name and, see if their name appears on any of the Indian rolls.  I would also recommend genforum.com, cyndi'slist.com, and familysearch.com.  On genforum you can look up surnames of your relatives and, see if anyone has posted anything about them.  Family Search is run by the LDS church and has access to all kinds of records and, you don't have to be a Mormon to use their website or anything. All of these web sites are free too.  Hope it helps some!

Answer 4

Try posting your family info at http://genforum.genealogy.com/ai/.  There are a lot of helpful people on that site willing to help those in search of their presumed American Indian heritage.  However, be forewarned that your heritage may not be what you think it is...