Reasons to Find Your American Indian Ancestors

Knowing you are Indian and proving you are Indian are indeed two different things. Some people who begin the search for an American Indian ancestor do so with the idea of becoming enrolled or what some mistakenly call “registered” in the tribe from which their ancestor came. Some even do it with the idea that they may somehow be able to benefit financially by doing so, and while this may happen in the form of educational assistance from your tribe or the BIA for example no one who is an enrolled member of any federally recognized tribe is getting rich because of it. This is truly the worst reason to seek out your American Indian ancestor and attempt becoming enrolled in your tribe. You will certainly not be respected for it by other Indians, and while it may sound cool to tell your non-Indian friends that you got yourself enrolled and are benefiting from it financially, in the end they will probably be the only ones impressed.

So, now that you know the reason to not bother seeking enrollment, providing you can prove your ancestry what are some of the reasons to continue on your quest? The main reason you or anyone else for that matter should seek enrollment within their tribe is because you want to understand who you are and where you come from. To do this research should mean a commitment to learning more about your ancestor’s culture and language. What it is vitally important to understand is that this act should be about regaining lost ground, and relearning lost knowledge. Ultimately, it is not about having a piece of paper that says you are Indian, honestly there are enough people out there already waving these around for that reason, we don’t need anymore.

Another reason to seek enrollment within your tribe is to find relatives. Only about 20%-30% of Native Americans actually showed up to be accounted for when the government began taking down the names for the original tribal rolls. This means that there were a large number of Indians who chose to blend into white society rather than be counted, and who could blame them given the ideas of the day. Prior to the early twentieth century American Indians were not even considered to be American citizens! Imagine living on land and in a country that your ancestors had lived in for thousands of years and then having someone come in and say you are not even a citizen! If you admitted to being Indian in some states you could not own land, and had to have someone who was white as a guardian in order to conduct any kind of business affairs.

It is truly sad when you think about it. So, that being said relatives are a possibility. Some of your ancestor’s brothers, sisters, or cousins may have chosen to be included on the rolls, and as such so may their descendants. Making that kind of connection is profound, and you may even find that there are oral stories about your ancestor that you never knew. Also the relatives may have wondered what happened to your ancestor if he/she cut ties completely. In addition learning the language and the culture from your relatives if you can find them and if they have retained the knowledge is a great way to reconnect with who you are.

A final reason and probably the most important one is identification. There are people who are born with a knowing for lack of a better word that they are Indian, sometimes even before they discover they have ancestry. If you are one of those people, someone who identifies with what it means to be Indian even if you don’t really have any knowledge about your tribe or language, if you are someone who reads about different Indian tribes or maybe you’ve attempted to teach yourself your tribe’s language from a book or tapes then this is a very good reason for seeking enrollment within your tribe. Identification is one of the strongest things which ties us to our ancestors, and if you are fortunate enough to have that and to truly feel it in your heart not just your head then ultimately this is what should drive you to seek enrollment.

Enrollment is so much more than just having a piece of paper saying you are descended from a federally recognized tribe. It is about identification, finding your relatives, and learning about where you come from. In the end if it is these reasons which drive you to seek enrollment within your tribe you will be richly rewarded for the trouble, if not you will find it an empty victory.