Family Tree Project

For the Northwest Arctic Borough
and the
Alaska Federation of Natives
Rural Systemic Initiative

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. So You Want to do Family Trees!

3. The Pedigree Chart

4. The Family Group Sheet

5. Familiarize Yourself with the Forms You Will be Using

6. Learning by Observation and Hearing

7. Taperecording

8. Doing an Interview

9. Choosing a Partner to Learn With

10. Switching Partners

11. American, Canadian, European, or Other Ancestors

12. The Value of Asking for Help from the Community

13. Using the Computer

14. Congratulations!

The elders of Northwest Arctic Borough have been very concerned about our knowing our own family trees. They say that there are too many young people who are related to each other going together with the intent of marrying each other. The Elders have nothing against young love, but they say that recessive genes appear in a marriage between two closely related people. Their children might have hearing problems, sight problems, minds not functioning normally, or other physical deformities which incapacitates them.

The elders realize that life is tough enough for a normal person to live, and a deformity adds to additional problems. It is not that the elders frown on physical disabilities; in fact they are very kind to individuals so afflicted. They just want their children to live without any undue problems.

It is a difficult task to break up a couple after they have fallen in love. Anything can happen to them because of the break-up. In their day, as it should be in ours,it was the parents' responsibility to let their children know to which families they were related to and by which one of their parents.

On the plus side it is so much easier to live the Iñupiat llitqusiat when you know which people are related to you. We Iñupiat should live the Iñupiat llitqusiat even when we know we are not related to people. It makes life more comfortable and you know you are doing the right thing.

We didn't have large homes when I was growing up. Our central heating was an oil tank stove that Papa made into a stove which had an oven and everything. -We all lived in a one-room house. I remember relatives visiting, filling every bit of the floor space at bedtime. In the morning everything was frozen. No one complained, because that was a fact of life in the Arctic. But it was always a pleasure to be awakened after somebody had built a fire and was cooking breakfast which usually consisted of hot cooked cereal and sourdough hotcakes. I can just smell them now. Then off to school we went.

The big thing was everyone eating together, with laughter every where, and cousins enjoying each others' company, reminiscing about people they knew... I am glad I grew up in those days when my grandparents' cousins came to visit, or to see the doctor, or both, and I got to know who I was related to.

I guess this whole thing of knowing who was related to me is a lifelong personal interest of mine. The more I know, the more I am amazed at how far our people travelled or where they eventually ended up.

So You Want to do Family Trees!!

Good for you! First, you must familiarize yourself with the formal charts you will be using. One is a Pedigree Chart and the other one is the Family Group Sheet You can find these sheets on pages 8 and 9. If you have the Pedigree Chart printed in one color and the Family Group Sheet in another color, it causes less confusion.

The Pedigree Chart

On the Pedigree Chart, your name goes in the beginning on the left side of the page with the name of your spouse (if any) right below it. Then you list your parents, grandparents, etc., as far as you know, or with the help of a community person. Most of the time, you must go to an elder if you want to get your Pedigree Chart as far back as possible and the pertinent information is known by someone.

On the Pedigree Chart, the male line always goes on the top line and your mother's line on the bottom line.

The Family Group Sheet

On the Family Group Sheet, you list your parents and all your brothers and sister and their spouses on the labeled spaces provided. It really helps later on if you list the names of your siblings in order of their birth. This is where you learn who your extended family is - your cousins. You may have to have your parents help you in naming your siblings as sometimes they don't talk about their deceased children. If there are any half-brothers or half-sisters, they should be put on another sheet to avoid confusion unless they were adopted by the current father.

There are spaces down in the bottom of the page for special notes and also in the special "note" page for any information that you don't want to forget about that person.

Familiarize Yourself with the Forms You Will be Using

The exercise given above will familiarize you with the forms that you will be using to get primary information from whomever you are working with. -Doing one's own Family Tree gets you started on finding out to whom you are related, including providing information for your siblings.

Now you are ready for the next part of gathering family tree information.

Learning By Observation and Hearing

Most of us Native people learn by observation and hearing and doing. The students should listen carefully for important soliciting words and prepare themselves for working with another person. It is a good idea to have a taperecorder going during solicitation of family tree information. There is so much information given and lots of chances for mistakes; a taperecorder helps you to remember what the subject said.

Have the teacher working with an elder. If the students are mainly English speakers, find an elder who speaks English. If you are teaching an older person who is more comfortable in speaking lñupiaq, have the teacher working with an lñupiaq speaker. For those who don't know the lñupiaq language, you may need a translator.

Taperecording

Taperecording the occasions of birth, marriage(s), and death of a person is an important way to start taperecording family history. A person should have a questionnaire to ask questions from the person. If you don't have a list of questions, the elder will not know where to begin because they have lived so long and are so full of information that an open-ended question leaves them not knowing exactly where to begin. Having an agenda will help the elder to remember certain information that you are soliciting.

After the family tree project, you can go back to the elder and start recording the family history. Doing Family Trees is tedious work and very tiring.

It is good to go as far back as the elder remembers. Sometimes you have to discuss with the elder what kinds of information you are looking for. Some elders have very clear minds and can tell you a lot of things that you didn't even think to ask. Some of the answers they give to your questions can be a springboard for an in-depth discussion of a facit of life that you didn't know about.

Working with elders seems to balance a person's outlook in this fast-paced life that we live. Somehow these interviews make you think of things that are important in life.

Doing an Interview

Now that you have familiarized yourself with the forms that you will be using by starting your own family tree and listening and observing an actual interview, you are now ready for recording a Family History.

Below are some suggestions you might want to use in your list of interviewing. You might use some of them and develop a list of your own for the particular work that you want to do.

1. Where is the oldest original site in the NANA region? Why does that person think it came to be a settlement?

2. What was life like in the subject's youth? What are some of the changes that the person has seen in his/her lifetime? How did these changes influence you, your life, and your family life?

3. Who were the first white people in your village? Why did they live there and what did they do? Do you know of any other ethnic people who married Native women besides the Whites, Japanese, and Portuguese? Do you know of any others who had children with a Native woman?

4. Why did people decide to settle in your village? Were they some place else before they settled here?

5. What did people do when they first started eating White Man food? Did they know what to do with them? Did they know how to cook them? What did they do with them?

6. How and why did the Iñupiat learn to speak English? Was it easy? Do your grandchildren speak English and do they know how to speak lñupiaq? If not, why not? Do you speak lñupiaq at home to your children and grandchildren?

7. Some people are worried that we are losing our Native language. Why are some words not spoken by our people any more?

8. Include any other questions you deem necessary for a complete family history of that person's life and those of his family.

Choosing a Partner to Learn With

For the experience, it would be nice if you worked with someone that you don't know very well. There will be many people that you interview later on that you have just met.

The first time around, the interviewer will have the taperecorder going and ask questions of the interviewee from an agenda and write down the answers at the same time. While you are at work, make sure that the taperecorder has tape and continues to record.

You are on your way - I hope you will learn many things from the person that you are interviewing.

Switching Partners

The second time around, switch positions and go at it as in the first part of this session. But now the ones who asked questions of the subject become the other interviewee's subject.

American, Canadian, European, or Other Ancestors

- Look through the Federal or State census.

- Bureau of Vital Statistics of Alaska in Juneau or another State

- National Vital Statistics Bureau

- Port of Entry from a foreign country.

- Land records (owning real estate property).

Have the University of Alaska or local college help you locate resource materials that are important to your research. They might have some other good ideas, too, so ask them a lot of questions.

The Value of Asking for Help from the Community

A Family Tree Project gets you in touch with the most unlikely people. There are many reasons why you must get in touch with these people; namely:

1. More accuracy of the work in terms of the sequence of birth(s) and who the grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., of the researcher are.

2. You are able to go back several more generations than of your knowledge alone.

3. Communicate with the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Juneau for some vital information in your research. There is a fee for getting a certified copy of a birth or death certificate from Juneau. If necessary, write to them explaining that you are doing family trees and need the information. They might not send you a copy of what you ask for only because from their records you are not related to that individual.

4. Family Bible. Double check the information written in the Bible with other sources that you have. Check the accuracy of your work with your family and friends back home.

5. Allow the subject of your interview to say all that he/she feels needs to be said about a given subject. The elders are not in a hurry to give information, but it is important to them to give accurate information as far as they know.

Using the Computer

The most tedious part of the Family Tree Project is typing in the collected information into the computer. You must pay attention to what you are doing. Make sure that ALL OF THE INFORMATION is included and the birthdates, etc., belong to the right person. I use a Personal Ancestral File obtained from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I think any company that manufactures software for computers has a genealogical software that you can use. I think mine was made for the Church by Microsoft Corporation of Seattle. I know that the LDS church has a lot of experience in genealogical work and each chapel has assigned volunteers to assist anyone who wants to do his genealogical work.

I use software at home made for the MACINTOSH computer. There is also an IBM-compatible software for those who have computers for which that software was made.

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Congratulations! If you have come this far, you are really on your way to become a genealogist. Please include the lñupiaq names on all of the people. We have lived a very long time in this homeland of ours, and I don't think that there are any new lñupiaq names other than the ones made up by some new parents. Our parents or grandparents gave us lñupiaq names of people that they treasured and respected.

Good luck to you as you journey through with the people in your Family Tree. Sometimes you will be surprised at which family is related to you!