Free US Indian Census Rolls Online 1885-1940 – While not searchable, the 692 rolls of the National Archives Publication M595 are now online for free. For the most part, these rolls dated after 1900 were done in alphabetical order and were typewritten – this should help make finding your ancestor much easier. The earlier ones though were often done in handwriting and the film quality can be very poor at times. Beginning in 1930, the rolls also showed the degree of Indian blood, marital status, ward status, place of residence, and sometimes other information.
Previously these rolls could only be found on paid genealogy sites such as Ancestry and Fold3 and you had to pay for access. These rolls are still available at those sites and are completely searchable from there. For more information see:
Since most Indians were not recognized as citizens until 1924 and not represented in Congress, the United States Government did a special census enumerating the Native Americans who lived on reservations. These census rolls were submitted annually by the reservations’ agent/superintendent as required by an act of July 4, 1884. Before 1930 the census provides information on the person’s name, date of birth, gender, and relationship to the head of the family. After 1930 the census provided information on the individual’s degree of Indian blood, marital status, ward status, place of residence, and also included miscellaneous commentary. Two major problems related to the Indian census are that they only recorded those who possessed a formal affiliation with a tribe, and that it did not consistently cover every tribe annually.
The Native American census was taken by Indian Agents assigned to specific agencies within the administration of the BIA. Each agency had jurisdiction over specific tribal areas which usually contained more than one specific tribe. The links below have been assigned to the specific agency with which the roll was taken. If you need to access the rolls by tribe then view the specific tribe link from the tribal pages.
