Webinar with Roccie Hill

“Native American Databases and Other Resources: The Secret Keys to Your Families” – Roccie None Hill, MA

Lecture Description: Finding information about Native American ancestors has long been a complex endeavor for many reasons: the lack of written records by native authors, cultural differences in naming traditions, language barriers, errors in non-native records, and forced transport of indigenous peoples, individually or in groups, to distant parts of the country. Understanding the historical context of bands and tribes is crucial to locating and analyzing written documentation, as is knowing where to look. We will discuss these contexts through treaties and other political or military actions, as well as identify online and physical repositories where both federally created and indigenous generated records are kept. We will review the efficacy of DNA to identify indigenous ancestry. Finally, we will review federal and state recognized tribes and sample paths to enrollment, since that is the Number 1 topic today in Native American genealogy.

Roccie None Hill, MA, Co-Owner of Past & Present Pathways, www.pastpresentpathways.com, has been doing genealogy research since 1990, and professionally since 2009. She specializes in Native American research, as well as Southwestern US genealogy including tribal and borderlands.

She is fluent in French, has worked extensively with French Canadian records, and has a working knowledge of Spanish. She has a BA from UCLA in Philosophy/History, and an MA from San Francisco State University in English/History.

She has written various articles for www.genealogists.com and for the Tennessee Genealogical Society, has lectured on military records and land records across the US, and has published two novels, Three Minutes on Love, 2008 and Window of Exposure, 2015 (The Permanent Press), as well as the play, Our Scars, in 2017, which was produced in Portland, Oregon, at the Fertile Grounds festival.

Roccie is a member of the DAR (past 2^nd & 1^st Regent at the Cahuilla Chapter), the National Society Colonial Dames of the XVII Century, APG Second Life (Vice President), Tennessee Genealogical Society (former Associate Editor of Ansearchin’ quarterly), Genealogical Society of Hispanic America (past Chair, Marketing Committee), National Genealogical Society, Virginia Genealogical Society, NEHGS/American Ancestors, Melungeon Heritage Association, Palm Springs Genealogical Society, and the New Mexico Genealogical Society.

She is a former cataloguing volunteer at the Research Library of the Smithsonian Affiliate, the Museum of the West in Scottsdale. She is currently a paleography volunteer for the Mellon Foundation-funded project, Native Bound Unbound, Archive of Indigenous Americans Enslaved.

She is also an experienced nonprofit grant writer.

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