Service Officer Guide - Narfe: Fill & Download for Free

First, there are really no national generic “rights”. A person is an enrolled member of a Federally recognized tribe or not. There are 567 recognized tribes in 2016, about 2.1 million people or so. Here is a list of the tribes http://www.indianaffairs.gov/cs/groups/xraca/documents/text/idc1-033010.pdf She needs to be a member of a particular one. Here are some basic facts Indian Affairs | FAQs. There are a small number of State recognized tribes that are not federally recognized. And there are groups that are trying to get recognition. Some lost theirs during “termination” in the 1950s. Others are “wannabes”. Here is a federal guide to tracing Native American heritage. http://www.bia.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/text/idc-002619.pdf It also clears up any misconceptions about special benefits or rights. But you need much more than “mostly Native American”. You need to be eligible to be enrolled.“If the end goal for doing such research is to help you determine if you are eligible for membership in a tribe, you must be able to: 1) establish that you have a lineal ancestor –biological parent, grandparent, great-grandparent and/or more distant ancestor – who is an American Indian or Alaska Native person from a federally recognized tribe in the U.S., 2) identify which tribe (or tribes) your ancestor was a member of or affiliated with, and 3)document your relationship to that person using vital statistics records and other records a tribe may require or accept for purposes of enrollment”The federal government services are mainly of this sort:“The scope of Indian Affairs programs includes a range of services comparable to the programs of state and local government, e.g., education, social services, law enforcement, courts, real estate services, agriculture and range management, and resource protection.”Here is the Native American Rights Fund on what “rights”she might have :“Contrary to popular belief, Indians do not receive payments from the federal government simply because they have Indian blood. Funds distributed to a person of Indian descent may represent mineral lease income on property that is held in trust by the United States or compensation for lands taken in connection with governmental projects. Some Indian tribes receive benefits from the federal government in fulfillment of treaty obligations or for the extraction of tribal natural resources — a percentage of which may be distributed as per capita among the tribe’s membership”Some tribes might have certain benefits but many do not. If she is not in contact which her tribal heritage and only interested in benefits this may not be worth it. It will take a bit of work. Each tribe sets it’s own rules and standards as to who is eligible. Some have rules that mean you have to be at least 1/4 or 1/2 from that tribe (one parent is 1/2, one grand parent is 1/4). In those cases, even if someone’s ancestry added up to 3/4s Native if it was 1/8 from 6 tribes then the person could not be an enrolled member of that tribe. Other tribes have enrollment standards of needing direct descent from a person who was on Enrollment lists (Dawes Rolls) in the period between 1893-1914 or so. Even if you were related to a brother or sister of a person on that list, if your ancestor was not on it you can’t be a enrolled member, in this example. Other tribes have many other standards. If she is from an Alaska tribe there are other issues like being a shareholder in a Regional Tribal Corp. On the other hand, if she has two or three grandparents who were tribal members it is likely that she can be too. Even if there are few or no benefits it might be good for her to know about her background.So, for a start you will need to know exactly what tribes and in what way she is related. She will need records. By “what tribe”, I mean exactly which federally recognized tribe is (or was) her relative a member. So “Lakota” or “Sioux” or “Cree” or “Ojibwe” or “Salish” is not enough. You need to know which tribal government. Some tribes have one government like the Hopi or Navajo have one government but many tribal groups are split among several governments. Each one may have different rules.So in this example, Lakota people are on Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Standing Rock, and Cheyenne River Reservations in North and South Dakota. Some Lakota also live on the Santee in Nebraska; Crow Creek, Yankton, Flandreau and Lake Traverse in South Dakota; and the Lower Sioux, Upper Sioux, Shakopee-Mdewankanton and Prairie Island in Minn.Most have websites these days and a page that lets you know what it needed for their tribal enrollment. All of them have contact information on the BIA website. All have offices and people to call to help get started. They may not jump to help if it is a dubious or distant claim. Many people think they will “get something” if they can prove they are part native. People who are “Native American” but not enrolled in a tribe or are part of a tribe that is not federally recognized are not usually going to have an enrollment process and it will not be worth doing anything more. If, in the details section of this question, you list what tribes and what relationships she has, then it would be easy for people here to help you more.The sorts of “rights” or benefits that your daughter might have really depends on what tribe we are talking about. If she was Yakama, she might have rights to huckleberry picking on Mt Adams. If she was a member of certain Puget Sound tribes she might have fishing rights. She might have a right to collect wild rice in certain lakes or visit certain off limits areas in other tribes. Some tribes have tribal businesses and might have employment opportunities. Some may distribute yearly profits or dividends. Some tribes have colleges or scholarships. Some scholarships funds are for Native people studying a particular thing or from a particular tribe. There are some national scholarship funds with limited resources. Some people may own a share of allotted property. Some places may have medical or social services. Some people may have a share of settlements of lawsuits. But most tribes are not going to have many benefits except the cultural richness of knowing relatives and communities. If she was a tribal member and went to live and work on a reservation she might not have to pay state income tax (if she was in a state that had such things). She would still owe most other taxes. Here is NARF again on taxes:“All Indians are subject to federal income taxes. As sovereign entities, tribal governments have the power to levy taxes on reservation lands. Some tribes do and some don’t. As a result, Indians and non-Indians may or may not pay sales taxes on goods and services purchased on the reservation depending on the tribe. However, whenever a member of an Indian tribe conducts business off the reservation, that person, like everyone else, pays both state and local taxes. State income taxes are not paid on reservation or trustlands.”