Fort Totten Indian Agency (North Dakota)

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Fort Totten Agency is a currently operating agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Its supervising office is the Aberdeen Area Office.

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Assiniboin, Cuthead (Pabaksa), and Santee, Sisseton, Yankton, and Wahpeton Sioux

History
Fort Totten Indian School was founded in 1890. In 1906, it was merged with the Devils Lake Agency and the name of the agency was changed to the Fort Totten Indian Agency. The new agency inherited the records of Devils Lake and continued to compile records as outlined by the Office of Indian Affairs (later the Bureau of Indian Affairs).

In 1910, a separate agency was established for the Turtle Mountain Chippewa. From 1947 to 1949, Fort Totten was part of the Turtle Mountain Consolidated Agency; thereafter, it was again independent. It is located in Fort Totten, North Dakota.

Records
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value (for the tribe and tribal members) were created by and maintained by the agencies'.

Some of the historical textual records of the Fort Totten Agency are now housed at the Central Plains Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Kansas City. Among those records, of particular value for genealogical and historical research, are:


 * Sanitary reports, 1876-1905
 * Record of employees, 1883-1913
 * Records relating to land allotments, 1890-1906
 * Lists of students arriving and departing, 1897-1910
 * Student record folders, ca. 1910-35
 * Birth and death certificates, 1919-45
 * Birth and death registers, 1924-33
 * Vital statistics register, 1927-30
 * Burial and removal permits, 1934-40

Some of these agency records have been microfilmed and are available at the Family History Library and through its system of family history centers (their ).

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency from 1906 thru 1939. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 161-164. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, the South Dakota State Archives (their microfilm roll numbers 9656-9658) and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Fort Peck Agency, 1910-1938, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Rolls 54-55, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, beginning with their.

Records Available through the Family History Library

 * Agency Records 1881-1941 (Census, School, Birth and Death, Heirship. Probate, Marriage, Annuities, Land and Allotment) FHL film: 1205538-1205539, 1023369-1023371, and 1205152-1205155

Web Sites
History of Fort Totten