Hona Gahni's Family
research note by Wesley Johnston, begun 7 Nov 2016, last updated 7 Nov 2016
Overview
This is a research note about my efforts to document the family of Hona Gahni, of the Dine people, living on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, connected with the Leeup Agency. My connection is via his daughter Juana BARTON (Hona Gahni used the English name Bernard BARTON in some records but mostly used his Dine name), since she married into the KEAMS family, who were Cornish-Dine and my cousins via my own KEAM line to our shared ancestors in Cornwall.
I am definitely not familiar with Dine customs and language beyond what basics I have encountered in this work, made with the help and advice of my Cornish-Dine cousin Roy DAN KEAMS. So I very much expect that I have made errors in this effort. In fact, that is a key purpose of this research note: to present information what I have and how I have come to organize and represent it in my family tree, so that such errors can be identified and corrected and the means by which they were made can also be corrected.
Methodology and Sources
Juana BARTON married Percy KEAMS about 1937. So they first appeared together in the 1940 U. S. Census:
http://1940census.archives.gov/search/?search.census_year=1940&search.county=Navajo%20County&search.page=3&search.result_type=image&search.state=AZ#filename=m-t0627-00110-00755.tif&name=9-16D&type=image&state=AZ&index=3&pages=4&bm_all_text=Bookmark&searchby=location&searchmode=browse
and the same image on Ancestry at:
http://interactive.ancestry.com/2442/M-T0627-00110-00755/77754574
So I began searching backwards, using primarily the Indian Census Rolls, along with the U. S. censuses and oral information passed down in the family.
The U. S. censuses took place every 10 years and were conducted by enumerators hired for that purpose. Thus they may not have had familiarity with Dine names and life.
The Indian Census Rolls were apparently done every year by the agencies in charge of each reservation. Thus these census taters had some familiarity with Dine names and life.
According to Ancestry's information: "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. For certain years – including 1935, 1936, 1938, and 1939 – only supplemental rolls of additions and deletions were compiled."
Ancestry's information also highlights one of several aspects of difficulty working with the Rolls: "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."
Challenges in the Research
Several issues make the Rolls difficult for tracing a family back in time.
1 - Breaks in the years available: While the Ancestry collection ( http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1059 ) is labeled "U.S., Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940" there are gaps. This is important because numbers were assigned to people in each Roll, and the prior year's number given with their current year entry. But where the prior year's census is not online, it can be difficult to determine whether two people born about the same time and in the same apparent place in the family list but with different Dine-only names are the same person. I will give more below on the specifics of the years available for Hona Gahni's family.
2 - Different numbering systems: The prior/current numbering system used in the 1920's gave way to a person-specific number in the 1930's. But the gaps in the years available sometimes make it unclear whether a person in the 1920's censuses is the same as one in the 1930's censuses.
3 - Spelling of Names of People and Tribes - Ancestry's information highlights one of several aspects of difficulty working with the Rolls: "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."
4 - Changing Dine Names: Especially for children, the Dine name they have in one census may not be the same as their name in a different census. As I understand it, the names were descriptive. Also, in some cases, they told the census taker a child was a "little boy" in Dine, which the census taker wrote down so that it then became the child's "name" in the census.
5 - Fluiditiy of Birth Years: Probably for a variety of reasons, the same person can show up in different censuses with birth years differing significantly in different censuses. This seems to have been due to the actual dates not really being known. Thus several grave stones have birth dates that are 3 years different from the few birth records that I have found.
6 - Children of Different Wives: While the Indian Census takers did note wife #1 and wife #2, all of the children were listed in an order that did not necessarily reflect that the last prior wife was their mother.
7 - Children from a Wife's Prior Marriage/Adopted Children: In some cases, English surnames were used, so that it is possible to tell that those children came from the prior marriage of a wife. However, when the Rolls have only Dine names of the children, it is not possible to determine who their mother was from their name alone. In addition, even when English surnames were used, sometimes the children from the prior marriage would be listed with the surname of the step-father.
Available Indian Census Rolls
At the time of this writing, I have systematically worked my way back in time through the 1925 Indian Census. Although I have included a few prior censuses for a few people, I will not systematically deal with a census until I have completed the work on the census of the year after that. So I am not fully aware of the situation with censuses prior to 1925. So this section may change as I work my way back in time and learn more.
Ancestry shows only these years available for the Leupp Agency (as "Leupp (Navajo Indians)"):
And the following is available for "Leupp Reservation":
So clearly there are gaps, with these years missing:
I do not know if there were censuses in those years or not. Nor do I know if the family is shown under some other jurisdiction prior to 1915 or after 1937.