Identifying the Descendants
SAND CREEK DESCENDANT
A Sand Creek Descendant is someone who had one or more ancestors present at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, and who may be eligible for a claim against the federal government according to the Treaty of the Little Arkansas, signed in 1865. There are many ways to establish a band membership genealogical connection between a person attacked at Sand Creek and a living descendant. One of the most difficult methods is to collect documents which establish parentage for each generation all the way back to the official list of family heads prepared in 1865. The problem here is that only family heads are named on the official list, and it is difficult or impossible in many cases to document parentage from 1864 to the first comprehensive government censuses created more then ten years later
SAND CREEK BAND LIST
An easier method of establishing descent is by band membership. Only certain bands were attacked at Sand Creek, and these bands still existed when individual land allotments were taken in 1892. Each band took a cluster of allotments, in various places around the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation. All members of a band were related to each other, and were descended from members of the same band as it existed in 1864. Of course, over the years, members of other bands married into the Sand Creek bands. Although these spouses may not have been Sand Creek descendants themselves, their children were, because of the band membership of the parent. That is, each resident in a Sand Creek band had at least one parent who was a member of the band. Consequently, every living person descended from members of the Sand Creek bands as listed on the 1892 allotment list is a Sand Creek descendant.
OFFICIAL LIST OF FAMILY HEADS (112 LIST)
The vast majority of Sand Creek descendants can be identified and qualified for any claim by reference to the 1892 allotment list. Those who cannot find any ancestor among the Sand Creek bands at allotment can still qualify by tracing ancestry back to the official list of family heads. For assistance with this method of qualification, contact should be made with genealogical experts through the SCMD Trust.
HEIRSHIP FILES
Another advantage of qualifying through the allotment list is that beginning at allotment, the federal government took responsibility for keeping up with descent through its "heirship files." These files are very comprehensive and constitute official documents. When an allotment was sold, however, the file was most often retired, and so additional connections between a Sand Creek descendant who was allotted and a living descendent must be established by consulting birth certificates, missionary records, and other documents kept by the local, state, or federal government.
ANCESTRY
To establish ancestry with the Sand Creek bands, only one line of relationship needs to be established. Even though a living descendant might have had ten or more ancestors present at Sand Creek, to qualify for any claim a living descendant only needs to establish descendant from only one of these ancestors. it is suggested that a descendant should pick the most prominent ancestor, since documents are more likely to be found concerning prominent persons. For example, if a person is descended from Chief Black Kettle and several other persons at Sand Creek, it is best to submit the claim as a descendant of Black Kettle, since he was a very well known person about whom many documents exist.