Native American Records Research: How to Begin – FORT

My interest in Native American research is because of my fraternal grandmother’s line which is Choctaw. When we were kids, our dad would have us memorize the Five Civilized Tribe names and remind us of our heritage often. We were all enrolled as tribal members because our heritage could be traced through the Dawes Rolls which was a census taken for the five Native American tribes in Oklahoma during the early 1900s.

My interest in family history research hastened when Elaine and I were called to serve in Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission in July 2017. There were 20 different zones that we could have received an assignment for. We were blessed to serve in the Family History Library, now known as the FamilySearch Library.

Being the oldest of five siblings, I’ve had the unofficial assignment of keeping track of the Fort and Stratton family histories for my mom and dad’s family lines. My mother’s family has had a family reunion every three years for her mother and father’s descendants over the last 24 years and usually has more than 200 family members participate for four days during the Labor Day weekend.

My father’s family is much smaller, with only one brother that survived childhood, and he only had one daughter. We don’t have any contact with any extended family on his family line.