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Project: Native Americans

Categories: Native Americans | Native Americans Project | First Peoples Project | North American First Peoples | Pre-1700 Projects


Are you interested in the Native Americans Project?native_americans.gif

WikiTree's Native Americans Project covers the lower 48 states of the current United States plus Alaska. The time frame covered by this project includes pre-colonial times through the present. Project members organize into teams based on their more specific interests.

Recognizing that the term "Native Americans" is not accepted by all people descended from the original peoples of what is now the United States - and respecting that no one term will ever be acceptable to all - members of the project and others using WikiTree are encouraged to use the terminology that is most appropriate to their identity or culture.

Contents

Mission

The mission of the project is to add and improve profiles of the first peoples of the land now bounded by the United States.

To accomplish our mission project members take primary responsibility for relevant profiles or family groups and work on merging duplicates, cleaning up profiles, adding sources, removing incorrect information and offering research assistance as needed.

How to Join

We ask everyone who wants to join the project to meet the following requirements:

  1. Be an honor-code-signing member of WikiTree for at least 30 days.
  2. Make at least 100 contributions to WikiTree profiles.
  3. Successfully complete the Pre-1700 Quiz.
  4. Answer our join thread in G2G to request to join the project.
  5. Find a Natives Americans Project Team you'd like to join, and express your interest when you answer the join thread in G2G.
  6. Identify a profile you've created or edited that demonstrates your understanding of WikiTree editing generally, and Native American profiles guidelines, research and sourcing. Be sure to include your example profile when you request to join the project.

Goals

Our project goals are:

  • To bring together WikiTreers interested in improving profiles and connecting Native American families to the Global Family Tree.
  • To improve profiles of the descendants of the people who resided in what are now the United States of America prior to the arrival of Europeans.
  • To create accurate, culturally-sensitive, and documented profiles for Native Americans.
  • To provide and maintain a logical and organized structure to help individuals identify their ancestors and celebrate their history.
  • To identify and mark profiles that are mythical or fictional.

Priority activities in support of these goals include:

To-Do List/Tasks

Here are some good ways to contribute:

Teams

WikiTree Native Americans Project members organize into teams based on their more specific interests. Everyone who wants to join the project is asked to find a team they'd like to join, and express their interests when requesting to join the project. See our Native Americans Project Teams List to find a team.

For an index of all pages of teams and other sub-projects, see the Native Americans Project Teams Category Page. This collection has a number of inactive teams, and we seek volunteers to activate or reinvigorate them.

For more about the differences between projects, sub-projects, project teams and free-space projects, see the WikiTree Project FAQ.

Collaboration & Communication

We use a variety of ways to collaborate and communicate with project members and other WikiTreers, guided by WikiTree's Discussion Rules.

Comments on Profiles

Comments posted to project-managed profiles and pages are tracked in the WikiTree Native Americans Google Group. For help with commenting see Help: Comments.

G2G Discussion Forum

We use G2G for most of our project communication. All project members should follow the Native_Americans tag to see posts in their G2G feed.

Google Group

The WikiTree Native Americans Project Google Group is used primarily for recording and tracking G2G threads with the Native_Americans tag, and Comments posted to project-managed profiles and pages. Project members who would like to receive these notifications can request to join the group by clicking on the group link: WikiTree Native Americans Google Group. A Google account is not required to join the Group, but you must be a member of the Native Americans Project to join; be sure to include your WikiTree-ID in your request.

WikiTree Discord

Project members can join the #native-americans channel on the WikiTree Server on Discord, a live chat system used by many WikiTreers. For more about using Discord and help with getting started see Help: Discord.

Templates

A note about Templates: Anyone can place Stickers on profiles that meet the Sticker's requirements. Project Boxes should only be placed by Project Leaders and Project Coordinators.

Native American Sticker

... was Ojibwe.
  • Use the Native American Sticker for profiles not requiring Native Americans Project Protection.
  • Anyone can add the Native American sticker to profiles of documented Native Americans as long as there is at least one reliable source included in the profile that identifies the person as Native American (see our Resource Hub pages).
  • Please use the Native American sticker only on profiles of people who were (or are) associated with a tribe. You can use the Heritage sticker (see below) for descendants who no longer associate as Native American.
  • Because placing this sticker on a profile also places the profile into the corresponding category, please include the tribe or nation name; do not use the band name in the sticker (explain in narrative).
  • Note that we typically do not use the word "Tribe" or "Nation" in the sticker tribe= parameter. Occasional exceptions may be made when a tribal entity includes people from multiple tribal backgrounds (e.g., the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation).
  • To place the sticker: add text like what you see in the "Code used" column in the Native American Sticker Examples table anywhere below the == Biography == heading and above the == Sources == heading. For example, the sticker shown above is generated by placing this text below the == Biography == heading: {{Native American Sticker|tribe=Ojibwe}}.

Heritage Sticker

Tree silhouette
... has Native American ancestors.
Tree silhouette
... has Wyandot ancestors.
  • If tribal affiliation is not known, or on profiles of descendants of Native Americans who no longer associate with a tribe, consider using the Heritage Sticker instead:
  • The Heritage Sticker does not place a profile into any category.
  • To place the sticker add this text below the == Biography == heading: {{Heritage Sticker|ancestors=Native American|imagetext=Tree silhouette}}. You could also use a particular tribe or nation name in place of "Native American" for the ancestors parameter. (Note that we do not use the word "Tribe" or "Nation" in the "ancestors=" parameter.)

Project Box

The Native American Project Box Template is intended only for Project Managed Profiles, co-managed by the project (along with existing profile managers), or any profile needing Project Protection. All other Native American profiles should use the Native American Sticker (see above).

{{{image-caption}}}
... was Native American.
Join: Native Americans Project
Discuss: native_americans
  • Project Boxes should only be added to profiles by Project Leaders and Coordinators. If you are Profile Manager for a profile you feel needs Project Protection, please contact our project leadership or post a question in G2G with a link to the profile.
  • We do not use the word "Tribe" or "Nation" in the project box tribe parameter.
  • The Project Box generates a category.

Native American Adjunct Box

The Native American Adjunct Template should only be added to profiles by Project Leaders and Coordinators.

{{{image-caption}}}
... ... ... is currently protected by the Native Americans Project for reasons described below.
Join: Native Americans Project
Discuss: native_americans

The Native Americans Project has a particular interest in accuracy concerning Native American relationships. Because of the fairly large number of false, fraudulent, disproven and speculative origin theories found on the Internet and in various published works of questionable quality, the Native Americans project may also manage and project protect profiles of individuals who might not otherwise qualify as Native American. This is done to improve the accuracy and reliability of WikiTree. These profiles might include individuals claimed by some to be either Native American or associated with Native Americans (parents, siblings, spouse, children) for whom there is sufficient evidence to have been so.

Project Guidelines and Resources

Project Categories

Name Fields Guidelines

To facilitate genealogical research and editing profiles specifically on WikiTree, the Native Americans Project follows some agreed-upon naming conventions for profiles of Native Americans. These guidelines are meant to help researchers make the most out of the tools available on WikiTree.

Last Name at Birth (LNAB)

WikiTree's underlying technology requires an entry in the "Last Name at Birth" field. It is the policy of WikiTree's Native Americans project to use this field to record the tribe or nation name for those individuals born before the introduction of surnames. For example, Pocahontas was a member of the Powhatan people. Her profile is Powhatan-3.

  • Please do not use general descriptive last names like "Indian" or "Native."
  • If the tribe name is not known, or if you do not have a reliable source for the person's Native origins, please use "Unknown" in the Last Name at Birth field.

Tribe and Nation Names

For modern tribal entities, we seek to use the name as it is officially recorded in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Federal Register.

For historical tribes, we seek to use the name that is most often used in historical records, understanding that these names are not necessarily what members of that tribe would have used; and that it’s often impossible to connect a person to a specific band, clan, or other smaller grouping, so we use broader terminology.

Traditional native language tribal names are typically not used for category names or template parameters (i.e., stickers or project boxes). For those we use whatever public-facing name is used by the tribe or nation in the United States, and encourage researchers to refer to native language names in the Biography narrative and Research Notes.

If you have any questions about the use of tribal names, please start a discussion in G2G's Discussion Forum and be sure to add the native_americans tag ("native_americans", with the underscore, but without the quotation marks).

Sources

WikiTree places a strong emphasis on sources, especially for vital statistics and relationships. We realize that this emphasis sometimes conflicts with oral tradition often associated with Native American ancestry. We try to reflect oral tradition in the narrative while at the same time following WikiTree's standards for sourcing when it comes to relationships and vitals.

Project-Managed Profiles

The Native Americans Project will typically manage or co-manage profiles of Native Americans (and sometimes non-Native Americans) when:

  • The profile needs and meets the criteria for Project Protection, most often because the person is historically significant, has widely-shared ancestors, or has been the subject of genealogical or historical dispute.
  • The profile does not meet the criteria for Project Protection but is frequently the subject of false or unsupported claims of native heritage, or questionable relationships (parents, siblings, spouses, children).
  • It is a high-visibility profile that does not meet the criteria for Project Protection but needs monitoring or tracking to knowledgably respond to questions, merge proposals, and Trusted List requests.

Project Management Tools

WikiTree+ Queries and Reports

External Resources