Jeff Bowen
The history of the Shawnee is fascinating. Naturally the most famous Shawnee known would be Tecumseh, born circa 1768. It starts with some fascinating materials covering not just the Shawnee but the Sac and Fox Nations. The first volumes concern the estates of these tribal members along with a mixture of other tribes within the Sac and Fox Agencies jurisdiction: Tribes such as the Absentee Shawnee, the Potawatomie, Winnebago, Mexican Kickapoo, Iowa, Otoe, and Pawnee, to name a few. You will find long sought after questions answered through Births, Deaths, Adoptions, and Guardianships. There will also be other records with Wills, Cemetery Records, Vital Statistics, Marriage, and Divorces later within this series. These materials are carefully transcribed from original documents that were rescued from a loft with a leaky roof. They were close to being lost forever from water damage. These logbooks and documents were boxed and stored in an attic where they kept vegetables in a building owned by the Sac and Fox Indian Agency. These books cover a range of time from 1885-1924. This series won’t be your average genealogical census or typed payroll records with miscellaneous tribal expenditures. So far it is providing interesting reading and a great deal of Native history while making you understand what your ancestors lived through in another era, creating your future. The majority of this volume, Volume XI, consists of the transcriptions of deaths, births, marriages, divorces, and other vital records, and which contain various documents and documentation memorializing the specific event. There are approximately 2,880 individuals documented. Sources will be found providing locations, values, fees, divisions of property, and, often, expenses associated with the event (death, marriage, etc.). Anyone examining these documents will find numerous family names, ages, relationship, sometimes death dates, along with any number of circumstances surrounding the event. In addition to the Sac & Fox and Shawnee Tribes, other tribes mentioned in this Volume are the Absentee Wyandot, Cherokee, Iowa, Kickapoo, Mexican, Munsee, Oneida, Otoe, Ottawa, Pawnee, Pottawatomie, Sac & Fox, Shawnee, Sioux. These volumes were transcribed from Oklahoma Historical Society film rolls SFSA-50 to 53.
