How To Locate A Tribe Without Much Information?

Question

My grandmother, Doris Boring married Harold J. Baalman; she was born in 1931 in Neodesha, Wilson, Kansas and died 29 MARCH 1994 • Hays, Ellis, Kansas.  My dad, his sisters and brother talk of her Native American Ancestry often, but I can't get details from them and they won't share.  Her father, Michael Boring is from Illinois born 08 December 1898 and died August 1966 in Kansas. His dad is Jacob Alexander Boring born 1861 Indiana

Comments

Remember that a lot of native americans classed themselves as white because of the stigma attached. This may be why your family won't talk about it.

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thanks, I think that is why I'm not finding anything, because every boring put down white when it comes to race.

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That'll be it. A high percentage of people here in Oklahoma have some Native American and most of them aren't members of a tribe or were ever on the rolls.

You could try MtDNA as I suggested (sale on this weekend at FtDNA), or not. It could very well not prove anything.

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Thee of my known family members have trees on a different site, I was astonished to see that my "Aunt Pete" (A Twin) had not been entered by all three of them intentionally!  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Duesler-28  .

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain

Answer 1

If you have access to one or more of your family genealogy profiles you might find it mentioned there.

You could get a DNA test.

Native American Tribes of Kansas

Answer 2

Do not fret over family not telling you.I once searched a mans father,

His own family would not tell him who his father was,

Indian lore in a family,is often sited.Usually handed down in family.Often

it is not based on anything,family just repeats it.I went back too 1850,Boring born 1825,no records back too then show Indian Ancestry.

Just ignore them,people hate to be ignored.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, DNA will not show you the tribal affiliation. I believe Native American often shows up as east Asian in autosomal tests. If you have an unbroken maternal line from your grandmother (grandmother to daughter (your aunts) to daughters of the aunts) you can see if your female cousins from that line will do an MtDNA test done which MAY show native american. However, if you grandmother's mother wasn't native american it will show whichever haplogroup she was. Another option (perhaps easier) is to have your father do an MtDNA test. That will be the same as your grandmother's MtDNA but will not be transmitted to you. As with your female cousins the results may well be inconclusive if there is any non-native american heritage in the female line.

Comments

Don't forget that the unbroken maternal line can come down to a descendant of any gender. The person taking the mtDNA test can be male or female and will be providing the mtDNA received from their mother. So for instance Andy could test his own mtDNA to get his maternal grandmother's haplogroup, and like you mentioned Andy's father (or any of his father's siblings or his father's sisters' children or his father's sisters' daughters' children) could be tested to determine the mtDNA haplogroup of his paternal grandmother.

Answer 4

I have found information about tribal membership in pension documents related to service in the Civil War.  And, a sister to my 2nd great grandma sent her children to an Indian School in Oklahoma (they lived there), and on the 1900 census, at the bottom it states which tribe they were from.  In another case, my great grandma's uncle married a Choctaw woman, and there are several documents discussing membership.  Those I found on Ancestry.

Pension documents
Schools/census
Tribal documents
War records

Comments

This works for those on the Dawes Rolls. Was Kansas part of Indian Territory at that time? I don't know.

Answer 5

Keep in mind there can be cultural reasons for not identifying ancestors.  With the Choctaw for example it was a taboo to speak the name of the dead.

Prejudices involved means most intermarriages of full-blood Native Americans and European Americans occurred in a setting where the white spouse did not have to face the disapproval of white peers.  Usually this was a frontier with few families and reasonably peaceful relations or an Indian village a white person was welcomed into as a teacher or trader.

Look for a specific time and place that this marriage could of occurred.  Look at the local histories and associated records of that time.   If you have your DNA tested look for others who descend from ancestors at that time and place and ask them about their heritage.

Prejudice also means that mixed communities tended to be endogamous.  Where you find one mixed ancestor you tend to find more.  So a 1/128, 1/64 or other blood quantum is unlikely, chances are better there were several or none.

While the Indian "Princess" is a stereotype, there are still millions of mixed-race Americans and Canadians who do not know their history.  Especially ones whose ancestors arrived in the 1600s.   Oral history could be passed down from this far back.  An apocryphal story of Grandma's Grandma being full-blood may reference an ancestor from that time.

Comments

I found something on the Borings from the Osage Nation of Oklahoma http://files.usgwarchives.net/ok/nations/osage/census/1900cn03.txt

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Do you have a family connection to this Boring family in Missouri or to the Osage that led you to that link?

If the Boring ancestor born 1851 in Indiana had the Native American heritage it is doubtful that it was Osage, as the were situated further west.  It is more likely from an Eastern Nation.  

Isolate ancestors and a time period you believe to be the root of the Native American ancestry.   Then work from there with regular genealogical methods looking for details to compare against local histories of the tribes.   Look at the path the oral history traveled in your family.  Was it passed through mostly female or male lines?  Are there a group of associated families with the same oral history?   These are good clues you can use to narrow things down.

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on that I typed in Yahoo Search Native American Names with the name Boring and it came to that scroll on the Osage Tribe Page. What Tribes are in Missouri, Indiana and Ohio? That is where I'm finding most Borings.

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Do you know the connection between the Boring ancestors on the Osage page and your specific ancestors?  That would be one way to make a link.  Do you know for sure your Boring ancestors were enrolled in a tribe?  Or more specifically the Osage?   If you know for sure they were enrolled you can search that way.   If you are uncertain of their specific origin you have to look at the clues and see what it points to.  For instance if they came from SW Ohio in the early 1800s migrating to Indiana and Missouri chances are good they were from parts further east.  Several followed this migration, including for example descendants of the Catawba, Tutelo, and Saponi.  Many were adopted into the Seneca and Cayuga and stayed in the area, others moved to Oklahoma and identified as Seneca and Cayuga there.  Still other Catawba descendants kept moving east to Utah and allied with Utes.  The details of an identity can be more complicated than simply appearing on a roll for particular tribe.   You really need to map out the family history to a specific time and place you expect your specific Native American ancestor lived.

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They were all from Missouri on the Osage roll page, but other family moved from Ohio, to Indiana to Missouri and some made their way to Kansas, I bet some still remain in those three states, plus on the East Coast. My aunt on the Baalmann side received a late Easter email from the Boring family, but it never gave a location.  She and the other one, as I said isn't much into sharing.

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If you have no specific Osage history in your family, searching those rolls first is starting the search from the wrong end,  I don't see any connection between Jacob Alexander Boring and any names on the Osage Rolls.   You can't assume a certain surname is necessarily related in Indian Country. Multiple families can have the same name, the same family different names, also names are adopted.

 More often than not Native American Nations are matrilineal and oral history is strongest on direct or mostly maternal lines.  If there is a strong history of Native American ancestry it is more likely from Doris Boring's mother's side Ethel Irene Smith.  Her parents are Francis Marion Smith 1880-1941 and Pearl Logsdon 1885-1941.  Francis Marion Smith is the son of Charles and Mary E Smith both born in Ohio.   

One of my ancestors on a Catawba-connected line is also named Francis Marion Smith 1761-1865. Census reports him being born in Virginia, he married Massa Jones also from Virginia and had children in Ohio in he 1810/1820s.  The family moved to Indiana by the 1840s.   The name Smith was a name they adopted, likely to obscure mixed-blood or Indian heritage from Virginia.

Look at all of Doris Boring's ancestors and rule out any lines you can identify for certain as European.  Take what you have left and look at where the brick walls are, and associated surnames for clues.  Based on this you should be able to look at all of her g-grandparents and identify each one as having  yes/no/maybe Native American ancestry,

Keep in mind that your relatives may not know more specifics than they are sharing.  Hiding Indian ancestry was a necessary part of keeping land from being taken for generations of ancestors.  Old habits die hard.

Answer 6

Specifically with Jacob Alexander Boring of Indiana a connection could be through Quakers and tribes in PA.   His ancestry looks heavily German/ PA Dutch.  For example the Seneca Cornplanter tract in western NY/PA where the Quakers taught farming skills for several years.  Or it could be ancestors who came to PA from MD/VA.

Comments

is there any websites or people to reach out to, I'm kind of at stand still with the tree on ancestry.