Mother's Legacy: Identity

Today's post concerns an issue that affects all Natives and that is enrollment and blood quantum and the question of identity.  Please refer to the following charts as I explain something my mother was trying to remember.  She'd told me that blood quantum didn't have anything to do with math or fractions. Now, after researching my family history, I know what she meant.  If you try to use a pedigree or ancestor chart to figure out your blood quantum, you may be in for a surprise.

I am on the rolls as 1/2 MCT blood. What this means is 1 out of my two parents is MCT blood and all her ancestors are MCT.  My father is from another tribe, well, band, as he is Chippewa, at least 3/4 cause I haven't found all his ancestors yet.  His blood quantum would be 6 out of 8 of his direct ancestors are St. Croix.  Where confusion enters is that not all tribes/bands have the same degree of blood quantum and some use lineal descent.  We have 1/4 as the minimum and St. Croix has 1/2.  I am not able to be enrolled at St. Croix as the number of my direct St. Croix ancestors does not equal 1/2 while the number of my direct ancestors with MCT blood is more than 1/4.  Where the math comes in is to reduce the fraction down to see if it equals 1 out of 4, i.e. 17 (parents)/(out of )64 is 2/8 or 1/4 and that is the only thing the math means.

Ancestor (Pedigree) Chart

Most people who think of or do research, are familiar with the Ancestor Chart.  It's how most genealogical charts are done.  There is a Standard for doing genealogy charts: direct paternal ancestors are the left side and maternal lines on the right.  Without a color chart, it gets confusing if you don't know the standards.  Colors are used to differentiate lines to make it easier to see as well as the ease of printing now that we have computers.

Descendancy Chart

What is actually used to determine enrollment is a Descendancy chart of someone on the basic rolls of the Bands in the MCT and St. Croix who may not have all been full blood.  Now it is harder to see the exact relationship as siblings marry different people and their children's quantum could be be different depending on the other"s enrollment.  So not all the cousins will have the same blood quantum, even though one line is the same.  To fully understand the importance of this, take a look at one of the public charts of Royal Houses of Europe.  Their kings and queens must be a descendant, preferably direct, of their first king/queen, or possess royal blood to some degree, which is why they've kept such records.

And there you have it.

Ancestor or pedigree charts are easier to understand than descendancy ones.  So don't use a pedigree or ancestor chart when you are trying to find your blood quantum.  Rather, use it to further your knowledge and understanding of your relatives.  You must use a descendancy chart to determine blood quantum.  Further information on descendancy charts can be found at  https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Genealogical_Charts_(National_Institute). Let this be a start in your search for knowledge.

Now, for those who are trying to get enrolled, there are issues much more confusing than the two touched upon, such as lineal descent.  First and foremost, in my opinion, is that of our culture and traditions concerning family which are quite different from that of the dominant society.  Traditionally, family generally means all our relatives.  When we introduce ourselves, we start with our name, our parents, our Clan, then Tribe.  (Notice, we do not say Band.  Though, nowadays, it is gradually being added, an influence from our recent past.)  The reason for this is to show our place within our society which has certain expectations that do not match with dominant society.

When my mother struggled to remember exactly how the determination of blood quantum worked, it was because she had an entirely different view of family.  We always hold Tribe, than Clan, then family as the basis for our identity.  We know exactly where we fit in the scheme of life as we see it.  What was, and still is, hard to assimilate is a different idea of family.

In the old days, when a parent died leaving a child behind, he or she did not have to be adopted into another family.  They already were a part of a family.  The parent's siblings, aunts/uncles or  grandparents, if still alive, took over the raising of that child.  If no one in the family was available, then a Clan or Tribal member took it over.

My mother's struggle had to do with the working down and separating out the exact parents of a child or descendancy, which has become more important than our traditional viewpoint of the child's  identity.  That, in a nutshell-albeit a simplistic explanation-is the problem with blood quantum.

How can a child be more Indian than his brother or sister?  This question was, is and will be asked until we, as a Tribe, answer it for ourselves.  Do we, as a Tribe, accept that the parents must already be enrolled as more important than our traditional view of the child already being a member of the Tribe and Clan by virtue of the mother and/or father whether legally recognized or not?   Directly correlated to this is the concept of legitimacy of the child which was introduced by the concept of marriage in the Christian church as opposed to our traditional view of marriage.  In the aforementioned Royal House charts, all claimants to the throne had to be legitimate: parents with royal blood married within the Church.  What has this to do with our Enrollment Records, you may be wondering?

Well, everything.  This was, and still is, a tactic of the dominant society and especially the Church in their "conquering" of the world: the introduction of legitimacy of people being born into the Church as the basis for membership.  If you weren't, well you were a pagan.  Our society says you are a member of our society before you are born, by the fact of being in your mother's womb.  Theirs says you have to accept their idea of membership or have it accepted for you i.e.baptism or adoption.  Thus, a descendant of someone listed on the Rolls is the only legally recognized member of our society in their viewpoint.  And since the U.S. government technically won, their rules abide.

Many of our people "adopted" these ways, thus we have conflict between those views.  In the spirit of the Royal Houses, only "legitimate members" can be Accepted.  In the spirit of our tradition, all babies born to a mother and father are Accepted whether married in the Church or not.  Keep in mind our "freedom of religion" was only granted in 1978.  Ahh, will be checking on civil marriages at some point.

The question of identity is so easy for myself, yet I see others struggle with it.  All because there are opposing concepts of parentage, marriage, society.  And it is thanks to my mother, Marjorie Alice, a Christian, that I am able to follow our traditional ways whilst my siblings can follow the ways of my father, Axel Sr., also a Christian.  She ensured that we treated each other with the respect due brothers and sisters.  We were never allowed to name call for whatever reason or answer to her.  If we fought, we had to find a way to resolve it.  We celebrated each other's accomplishments and learned to get along with each other.  She got her strength from her parents and grandparents.

I, Niiganabiik, Mildred Holmes in the English, Bear Clan, Ogiichidakwe of the Aniishinabe, daughter of Marge/Axel, granddaughter of John/Mabel and Henry/Rachel, greatgranddaughter of Frank/Alice, Charles/Jesse, George/Catherine, and Hartley/Judy, *greatgreat granddaughter of Wakiimawab/?, William/Mary, am my mother's daughter.  I hope this topic has answered one or two questions you may have on the subject of enrollment and blood quantum as well as clarify your idea of identity.

*These two lines were of more interest-mother's and father's direct paternal line, the others will be added as I get the info. (Name translations, if any.)

Search Engines

The records most have heard about through ads are the ones held at Ancestry.com.  Census records come immediately to mind. Surprise, surprise. surprise.  Researching by just entering a name on a search engine has netted me much information about my family. In fact, I was astounded by the number of entries for some names.  Course, I was one of the very few who actually looked at search pages number 4 and higher.  Point, I found myself two hours later, finally getting to search results that were basically the same as those earlier.

I was even amazed at the number of lateral names that came up in this search.  Now, here is where you will need to be very careful in clicking the links.  This is how I came across some photos, articles in the New York Times that pertained to my ancestors and their friends, colleagues and clan.  I've come across relatives names mentioned in books that had been written.

When I mentioned some of the documents to my mom, more information about our family was unearthed.  She gave me names of people I could talk to as well as more of the history of our village. Other family had more information about how many of these books were written.

Search engines can point you in directions to follow. They can't if you don't have much more information than a name, so try to have as much info as you can if your ancestor has a common name. A couple times, while searching for something completely different, pages have come up.  So have a few key words that might help you in your search.  And have a notes file on your computer for copy/paste of the url (and a description of the contents) where you found the page as bookmarking can quickly get to the hundreds if you're not careful.  The Wayback Machine isn't as helpful if you don't have the url.  And many pages have been taken down at someone's request.

I will be featuring interviews with tribal historians. Family Legacy is much more than genealogy, as my journey to trace family history has taken many turns.  One thing I've learned is to stop the knee jerk reaction of anger when reading some of the documents. Featuring tribal historians may help us to see things in a different light.

Aha or eureka!

Good thing not much changes in the world of research, genealogical or otherwise, as it has been a while since I've posted on this particular blog.  Mostly, because I've been experimenting with different items on my other blog with an eye to maybe using those techniques on this one.  So far, have no plans to change this blog.

I started my family research at the beginning, of course.  Luckily for me, we have elders here in the village who remember some of the people mentioned on the various census reports.  That is the first place you start, as your journey along the genealogical path will not always be what you expect.  Particularly with the difficulty of Anishinbeg/English, upon occasion, Scot, Irish, French names.  Those seem to be the predominant ones I've found in my search along the tree branches.

Of interest is the knowledge you gain just from entering your living family members into your tree.  There is a need to observe the privacy and confidentiality laws when doing this part of the search.  Some family are fine with it and others are iffy.  A n d then, there are those who absolutely refuse, for one reason or another to be listed anywhere.  

You will gain a greater respect for the history you were forced to study in school.  Because you will need this knowledge.  Did you know that the first Census reports of the Anishinabeg were taken by a Lt. in the Army at LaPointe Agency?  Do you know where the LaPointe Agency was?  And did you realize the Tomah Indian School was important to you also? Do you know that the Tomah Indian School is now a Veteran's Hospital?  Why do I mention these two places?

The LaPointe Agency is where the start of most of the records you will be looking at began.  And Tomah Indian School is where many of your grandparents and great grandparents went.  These are located in Wisconsin.  So, the Wisconsin Territory is another place you will need to know a little about in order to get hold of records.  And don't forget the years that Minnesota and Wisconsin became territories/states.  And the further back, you will need to know which country was in control of our homeland as there are more records you can find.  And the fur traders.

Why, you ask, are fur traders important? Because of the Hudson's Bay records.  They have records of payments to Indians. {http://pam.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/45830/1/5/17711?RECORD} And where are these records located?  Why, they are located in Canada.  And how do you gain access to these records if you are American?  http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/research.html is the webpage containing the information needed to continue research.  Now, some of the Indian payment records might not be pertinent to your research.  That was an example.  And I just checked at the Manitoba holdings website.  The archival site has indexed some biographical information.  

Now, my point is...if you are searching for ancestry earlier than 1860 or thereabouts, you may need these records as US records, as such, aren't available.  Maybe military or in private holdings.  How will you know?  Doing the research.  In the long run, we, as Anishinabeg, may not be able to get the documentation required by genealogists for years earlier than 1860 or thereabouts.  We have a rich oral tradition.  This does not satisfy the genealogical requirements per se.

And why did I title this Aha or eureka?  Because many of you have only just started to realize the importance of those boring, dull, history courses.  

"Preparedness" Plan

When I first started researching, I went to a repository about 60 miles away. It was my first experience with handling records at a specialized site. Staff weren't very helpful. Microfilm readers...as it's said, once you know how to ride a bicycle...I learned how to use those readers in high school and it started coming back to me. Niibauwsh... after I'd been there a couple times, staff hovered, asking if I knew how to work the machine. The last time I was there, I read some books and magazines.  Finally, staff treated me with a little respect.  

Since that first visit, I've been to several sites and haven't felt out of place. I do most of my initial research online now. Not all Research Centers are listed online. You may have to do some hunting to find local museums and historical societies who may have information you need. When I want to look at documents, I already have the information to give to the staff.  I make it a point to ask about rules specific to the Center I'm at.  Rules vary; check upon your arrival.  Be prepared for various reactions ranging from very helpful to negative. I've found it's best to ask at the start of the visit so I can gauge how much/what kind of help I'll get.  I've stood for 15 minutes and have had to hunt down someone just to ask.  Other times, the person is extremely helpful to the point of too much info.  Most are in the middle of these though.


Last December, I was at the National Archives in Chicago specifically to look at a particular set of microfilms.  Turns out the roll there that morning wasn't in the cabinet now.  Disappointed, crabby, I wasn't sure how to feel.  I didn't want to go to all that expense again.  I will have to though.  I can only get at the records I want to see right there. 


I've read quite a few articles about trip planning and tips for research.  I guess I'll have to have a Plan B, C, D and E for the next time.  Heck, why not all the way to Plan Z.  That way, I can explore a little more.  I did look at some of the other films.  I didn't order anything though.  Just looked and read a bit.  I had some other names to look up. Only the names aren't in English and aren't spelled the same from one census to another.  The earliest census available for my tribe is 1860 and reading from one to the other requires looking through hundreds if not thousands of images before getting to the one you want.  After 1900 or so, they started putting the last census number the person was on. That's not always correct but it helps to narrow down your search. 


And pay attention to those indexes, if any.  That will help if you don't have much time.  I generally didn't use those though.  I found some records I wouldn't have found if I'd gone straight to the frame.  And looking through some of the books and old newspapers netted me articles about ancestors. and other persons of interest to me.  Some of those articles gave me backgound for stories I'd heard growing up.  I've got a fairly good picture of life and where my relatives fit in that life.  Now, I will be trying to locate records earlier than 1860 and most of that research will take place in Canada.  Since I don't read French, I'll have to find a genealogist to do that part. Or add learning French, possibly Spanish, to my list of things to do.  Teehee.