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CCD - Ethnic Literature - 205 - Avant |
Your I-Search paper is designed to teach you something valuable about your family traditions and the nature of searching and discovery. The I-Search paper allows you to take an active role in your research, to hunt for facts and truths firsthand, and to provide a step-by-step record of your discovery process |
Part 1 - What You Know, Assume, or Imagine
No outside resources are needed for Part 1. Is there a story that you want to tell about your family? Make notes for yourself about your story. Don't start your research in Part 2, until you have a good list [about 1 page] in outline form about where you will be looking for information for your story. Make a list of who you know, what you know or who might be good sources. |
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Think about the country that you, your parents, or your grandparents came from?
Compose a "Portrait" in pictures and words of a person in your family who came from your native country.
What words, phrases or customs are used to identify your ethnic background? Make a short list
What traditions does your current family still practice that came from your native country?
How do you see your ethnicity compared to:
- Your Cousins?
- Your Parents?
- Your Grandparents?
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Part 2 - Your Search
Primary Resources: In Part 2 you test your ideas about your story from Part 1. This is where your interview results and field research become important. Use family letters, journals, diaries, bibles, pictures, military or immigration records. This is your chance to talk with your family about those records. By doing this you'll learn how to budget your time and the time of others; how to ask for the right amount of information. As a reporter you also learn the first lesson of Reporting: "Never come back from an assignment without a story !" |
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You may be saying to yourself, “I’ve never been good at this research thing. In fact, I don’t think I have a good research project in me.”
My response is, “Of course you don’t. A good research project is out there, not inside you. What you have to do is get out there, find the data, work with it,and use it to make a difference.”
- William Badke |
Secondary Resources for Ethnic Research
Secondary Resources: In Part 2 you'll also be looking at books, magazines, newspaper articles, films, websites and any sources that support your Family Story. These can also include cultural or poltical facts that make your story real and add truth to it. |
Part 3 - What You Discovered
| In Part 3 you'll write some personal commentary that describes the journey you just made. How difficult was it to write your story? What were some of the fun or interesting things you discovered in the process? What did you learn that you didn't know before? |
Indian Census Rolls, 1885 - 1941, Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs,
Arranged alphabetically by the name of the agency or jurisdiction, and thereunder by year. Family groups are listed together in rough alphabetical order. |
Open Web Resources - Rootsweb
 Chief Washakie
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The Dawes Rolls, also known as the "Final Rolls", are the lists of individuals who were accepted as eligible for tribal membership in the "Five Civilized Tribes": Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles. Those found eligible for the Final Rolls were entitled to an allotment of land, usually as a homestead. The Rolls contain more than 101,000 names from 1898-1914 (primarily from 1899-1906). They can be searched to discover the enrollee's name, sex, blood degree, and census card number. Before you can effectively use the online index to find a person in the Final Rolls, you need to know:
- Your ancestor's name
- The name of the person's tribe
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Keeping backup copies of your family history data and your research files is important. You may use a software program to back up your data files. You will have other research files on your home computer. What would you do if your computer hard drive failed? The answer is, "Go to your backup copy." Sadly, many do not make backup copies of their research files.Here's another idea. A USB flash drive, also known as a jump drive is a handy device. You can copy almost any data to these portable devices and take your data with you.
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Organizing Your Research
It's important to find a methodology and a set of research tools that will work for you. If you can keep an organized record of your research, you'll save time and avoid "plowing the same field," over and over. It also helps to keep a research log. Keep a separate log for each person in your story. Make research folders on your flash drive for each person. Keep documents for each person in your research folders. |
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