Hi Jonie,
A great eneology librat is the Daughters of the American Revoloution.

“The DAR has long had an interest in Native Americans, and its American Indians Committee, established in 1936, “provides financial assistance and educational aid to native American youth” through support of several schools and with a scholarship program. With this activity as background, the DAR Library established a special collection in 1987 designed to assist with Native American research using existing holdings and newly donated materials. It has continued to expand since its inception. Now numbering some 2,000 volumes, the American Indian Collection provides historical and genealogical information on first peoples across the United States.

While the focus of this collection is general history and culture, genealogical studies and guidebooks are becoming more numerous. Researchers will find histories of specific Native American nations, state studies, and materials on interactions with European and African settlers. There are six shelves concerning the Cherokee alone. In addition to the special collection itself, much information on Native Amerians can be found throughout the collection under the states and their counties.

The American Indian Collection supplements another nearby gathering of materials on Native Americans, the Natural Resources Library at the Department of the Interior. This library is open to the public but does not circulate books. Its holdings on American Indians are quite extensive and contain many valuable materials for genealogical research.”

You have to do the genealogy. Starting with yourself and working your way back. In order to receive any of the benefits available to members of Native American “tribes” or “nations” you have to become a member of one. In order to do that requires that YOU do alot of work. YOU have to be able to prove a direct lineage back to a person who appears on a Native Roll. IE: If you wanted to become a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma you have to prove lineage from a person appearing on the Dawes Roll, for the Eastern Band of Cherokee it would be the Baker Roll. Each “tribe” or “nation” has it’s own requirements, so you will need to find out for the particular tribe your ancestors were part of.

If you need further help there are many resources on the web, here is a group that I belong to that offers help to people researching Native American Genealogy.

first you need to contact the respective tribes. The BIA has a PDF to download of tribal contacts of EVERY Federally Recognized Tribe in the U.S.

They will tell you what you need.
Documents are best found via the Mormon Church. Their Genealogical archive is near perfection. They have most records you will need.

Hi Jonie

Here is a link to a page, that lists out how to research your Native American roots, it goes throught he different avenues you can take, like what nations to contact, their contact details, the Bureau of Indian affairs, how census records can be used.