Indian Research in my opinion is the most difficult Family Research you will attempt. Unlike the research you have done on your white family with the use of written records, Indian research is mostly word of mouth. Most research is based on a family story that may or may not be correct. Like Great Grandmother was an Indian Princes, No such thing in North American Indians.
Most of you know all the standard places to look, census, birth, death, and marriage records. With Indian Research you will need to learn about the tribes, where they lived and roamed. Many tribes just traveled through areas and never lived there except for a few months in the summer when searching for food. Reservations covered several thousand acres in more than 1 state and when land was taken by treaty many times the Indians still thought they should be able to go to these lands, Camas Prairie is an example.
How to start your Native American Research:
- Tribal Histories
- Tribal Location
- Bannock County Indian Tribes
- Bannock
- Nez Percé
- Shoshoni
- Bannock Indian Tribe
A Shoshonean tribe whose habitat previous to being gathered on reservations can not be definitely outlined. There were two geographic divisions, but references to the Bannock do not always note this distinction. The home of the chief division appears to have been southeast Idaho, whence they ranged into western Wyoming. The country actually claimed by the chief of this southern division, which seems to have been recognized by the treaty of Ft Bridger, July 3, 1868, lay between lat. 42° and 45°, and between long. 113° and the main chain of the Rocky Mountains. It separated the Wihinasht Shoshoni of western Idaho from the so-called Washaki band of Shoshoni of western Wyoming. They were found in this region in 1859, and they asserted that this had been their home in the past. Bridger (Ind. Aff. Rep., 363, 1859) had known them in this region as early as 1829.
Bonneville found them in 1833 on Portneuf River, immediately north of the present Ft Hall reservation. Many of this division affiliated with the Washaki Shoshoni, and by 1859 had extensively intermarried with them. Ft Hall reservation was set apart by Executive order in 1869, and 600 Bannock, in addition to a large number of Shoshoni, consented to remain upon it. Most of them soon wandered away, however, and as late as 1874 an appropriation was made to enable the Bannock and Shoshoni scattered in southeast Idaho to be moved to the reservation. More - Bannock Tribe
- Bannock Indian Culture and History
- Bannock Tribe, Wikipedia
- Account of the Bannock Indian War
- Bannock Indian War
- Bannock Indians
- Roaming the Great Basin
- Through the Eyes of an Elder
- Nez Percé Indian Tribe
Nez Percé (‘pierced noses’) A term applied by the French to a number of tribes which practiced or were supposed to practice the custom of piercing the nose for the insertion of a piece of dentalium. The term is now used exclusively to designate the main tribe of the Shahaptian family, who have not, however, so far as is known ever been given to the practice.
The Nez Percé or Sahaptin of later writers, the Chopuunish (corrupted from Tsútpeli) of Lewis and Clank, their discoverers, were found in 1805 occupying a large area in what is now western Idaho, north east Oregon, and south east Washington, on lower Snake river and its tributaries. They roamed between the Blue Mountains in Oregon and the Bitter Root Mountains in Idaho, and according to Lewis and Clark sometimes crossed the range to the headwaters of the Missouri. More - Nez Percé Indian Tribe
- Nez Perce Tribe, Wikipedia
- The Nez Percé, University of Washington
- Oral Traditions
- Homeland and Population
- Social Organization
- Indian Missions of the Columbia Region
- Native American Land Patents
- The Epic of the Nez Percé
- Shoshoni Indian Tribe
Shoshoni. The most northerly division of the Shoshonean family. They formerly occupied west Wyoming, meeting the Ute on the south, the entire central and southern parts of Idaho, except the territory taken by the Bannock, north east Nevada, and a small strip of Utah west of Great Salt lake. The Snake River country in Idaho is, perhaps, to be considered their stronghold. The northern bands were found by Lewis and Clark in 1805, on the headwaters of the Missouri in west Montana, but they had ranged previously farther east on the plains, whence they had been driven into the Rocky Mountains by the hostile Atsina and Siksika, who already possessed firearms. Nowhere had the Shoshoni established themselves on the Columbia, although they reached that river on their raiding excursions. More - The Shoshone Bannock Indian Tribe
- Shoshone Bannock Indian History and Links
- Shoshone Bannock Tribe Enterprises
- Tribal Bison Herd
- Trading Post
- Clothes Horse
- Tribal Museum
- Fort Hall Shoshone Bannock Tribes
- Shoshone Lemhi
- Shoshone Bannock Trails
- Shoshone Bannock Museum
- The Shoshone Indians