In Native American Research it is important to know that five tribes were considered as "civilized tribes" by the United States government. The following is a quote from wikipedia about the five civilized tribes:
The Five Civilized Tribes were the five Native American nations: the Cherokee,The information for this site is for use at the Family History Library(FHL), Salt Lake City, Utah. It will contain a bibliography of books in the FHL specifically for Chickasaw Native Americans.
Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, which were considered civilized by
white settlers during that time period because they adopted many of the
colonists' customs and had generally good relations with their neighbors. The
process of cultural transformation was proposed by George Washington and Henry
Knox; the Cherokee and Choctaw were successful at integrating European-American
culture. The Five Civilized Tribes lived in the Southeastern United States
before their relocation to other parts of the country, especially the future
state of Oklahoma.
DAWES ROLLS
Today these five tribes continue to use the Dawes Rolls as the basis for determining tribal membership. They usually require applicants to provide proof of descent from a person who is listed on these rolls.
The following is a description of the Dawes Rolls from the website:
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/tutorial/dawes/
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.
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.
The census card may provide additional genealogical information, and may also contain references to earlier rolls, such as the 1880 Cherokee census. A census card was generally accompanied by an "application jacket". The jackets then sometimes contain valuable supporting documentation, such as birth and death affidavits, marriage licenses, and correspondence.
The following site will give you a step-by-step example of what you can find using the Dawes Rolls at the Family History Library. In this example, the name of the person is George Guess and he is from the Cherokee tribe.
To go to this site, click on Dawes Rolls.
CHICKASAW BIBLIOGRAPHY - Family History Library (FHL) at Salt Lake City, Utah
The bibliography will be added later.
