California, U.S., Index to Census Roll of Indians, 1928-1933

This database contains an index to the California Indian census rolls from 1928 to 1933. Information contained in the index typically includes the following.

• Name (Indian and/or English)
• Gender
• Age
• Birth date
• Census date
• Relationship to head of family
• Marital status
• Tribe name

Additional information about an individual such as degree of Indian blood, where enrolled, amount and kind of property owned, or other remarks, may be available on the original record. Be sure to view the corresponding image in order to obtain all possible information about an individual.

The Indian Census schedules are census rolls usually submitted each year by agents or superintendents in charge of Indian reservations, as required by an act of 4 July 1884 (23 Stat. 98). The data on the rolls varies to some extent.

There is not a census for every reservation or group of Indians for every year. Only persons who maintained a formal affiliation with a tribe under federal supervision are listed on these census rolls.

Notes about Searching the Censuses:

When browsing this collection, it is important to note the following:

1) Family groups are listed together and are sometimes listed alphabetically by surname of the head of the family, but often there is often no discernible order to the listing of families.

2) Currently accepted spellings of tribal names have been used in the list below. In the census rolls themselves, obsolete spellings are often used; and the name of a tribe may be spelled several ways in different rolls. Sometimes even the name used for a tribe was changed from year to year.

Some of the above information was taken from:
Curt B. Witcher and George J. Nixon, "Tracking Native American Family History," in The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, ed. Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997).