I have a friend that is Ojibwe, She was adopted by a white family here in the US.  She is wondering what it would take to get registered as she states her father never registered her or her siblings.  Could you send me some info please.  Thanks so much.

At least in the U.S., enrollment in a federally recognized tribe is through the 'tribal government,' and each one has different procedures and requirements for enrollment.

What your friend would need to do, to start, would be to find out the reservation that her father (and / or mother) is "enrolled" at, and what are that particular tribal government's basic requirements for enrollment.  Some of the basic enrollment requirements are usually in the tribal constitution, or in 'enrollment ordinances' that were adopted shortly after the constitution was 'accepted by the tribe.'  Most of the constitutions for federally recognized tribal governments in the U.S. were written from a B.I.A. (Bureau of Indian Affairs) fill-in-the-blanks 'model constitution' that complied with the provisions of the federal Indian Reorganization Act, and most of them are fairly similar.  Some Indian tribal constitutions are online, through the Native American Rights Fund, the National Tribal Justice Resource Center, and/or on the individual tribe's website.

Many federally recognized Indian tribes have '1/4 blood quantum or more' requirements for tribal enrollment, and usually this means 'Indian blood quantum' from that particular tribe, so that a person could be a 'fullblood' but -- because of specific 'tribal' blood quantum requirements -- not eligible for enrollment in any particular tribe.

Also, especially with those tribal governments that have fairly high incomes (from gaming, smoke shops, etc.) that are distributed per-capita, there is a monetary incentive for those people who are already enrolled, to limit additional tribal enrollment, since "more people" means "less money" for each person.  There have been some bitterly-contested legal fights about tribal enrollment on a number of reservations, some of them involving people who were on the orgininal "base rolls" for a particular tribe as mandated in the constitution, but who have since been excluded.

Your friend is also going to need to provide some kind of legal documentation for tribal enrollment -- exactly what depends on the particular tribal government.

I was put up for adoption as an infant.  My mother passed away several years ago.  I had several brothers who were put up for adoption as well, and my birth family was scattered  I have met some of them.  Is there any way you could put me in touch with the others?  Thank you.

I don't know if the First Nations Orphan Association would be able to help you, or not ... but, at the very least, they are in touch with a network of Indian people who are confronting the same issues as you are, and their executive director, Sandra White Hawk (email address sadoptee@yahoo.com) may have much better ideas than I do, about how to even begin the process of locating your lost brothers.

and, a friend adds:

The systematic removal of children from indigenous communities through adoption and long-term foster care is clearly in violation of the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2 (e), and, like other war crimes banned under international law, has repercussions extending through decades, generations.

The International Red Cross, including the American Red Cross under its 1905 Charter, is legally obligated to 'provide relief ... to victims of conflict and disaster' -- specifically including intenational tracing services and other aid to 'facilitate reunion with relatives.'  But, to the best of my knowledge, the Red Cross does not help 'Indian' adoptees locate lost relatives; perhaps an organized international effort could change this?

Tens of thousands of 'Indian' children were forcibly removed not just from their homes, but also from their communities, and far too many of these people have searched for years - in some instances their entire lifetime - for lost relatives, for their 'real' identity in the disjuncture between 'two worlds,' and for personal and community healing.

And yet - apart from the efforts of the First Nations Orphans Association (FNOA) and other grassroots organizations - I don't know of any organization that is set up to countless Indian adoptees, find their relatives.

It's possible that the brothers you are trying to locate, are on the tribal rolls, and therefore that the tribal enrollment office (and the B.I.A.) have a record of their recent addresses.

The way that the federal government set up various aspects of its 'Indian' system were - in my opinion - not in the best interests of indigenous people, and the balance between B.I.A. 'service population' (not enrolled tribal members) as among the criteria for determining levels of tribal funding, and the clear disincentive to enrolling all eligible Indians that's intrinsic to the federally-implemented system of 'per capita payments' [the more tribal members, the smaller the 'share' for each], has meant that many 'tribal councils' have set up some fairly rigorous barriers to 'enrollment.'  It's a contentious issue (and likely to get more-so) -- that's worth bearing in mind so that anyone trying to access the information on tribal rolls would not take fairly vigorous "rebuffs" by tribal enrollment officers as any kind of personal rejection.

Finding your lost relatives by asking the B.I.A. regional office - the realty department was making a serious effort to deal with probate backlogs a couple of years ago - is maybe like buying a lottery ticket: relatively low odds of success, but worth a try, and with the B.I.A.'s efforts to improve their record-keeping in compliance with court rulings in the case Cobell v. Norton, the chances that the B.I.A. has accurate information have probably improved.  Presumably Indian probate records are federal (administrative law) records subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but the only ways I've ever accessed those records have either been as a 'party at interest' ... or informally 'leaked'

Other just-maybe it'll work possible strategies of accessing information held by the B.I.A. and/or the tribal council:

- Contacting the Office of Trust Funds Management, just-in-case there are IIM trust funds (for which the B.I.A. is presumably responsible for finding all heirs).  It seems to me that there's a legal 'powder keg' involving the de facto disinheritance of Indian people who were 'lost' after having been adopted out; I haven't followed the Cobell case closely enough to know how that issue was dealt with (if it was) and don't have the legal expertise to offer an expert opinion as to the possibilities of further legal action to remedy such disinheritance

- Contacting candidates for tribal office during the most recent election -- absentee voter lists include contact information for some (not all) tribal enrollees living off-reservation.

and, perhaps ...

- It would likely take quite a bit of time, but oftentimes what's been retained as a part of Indian people's oral history is sometimes pretty remarkable: one of your surviving relatives quite possibly remembers where your mother was living when your brothers were born, and - on the order of a 'miracle' but possible - if you do some 'asking around' you might 'hit the jackpot' and find a sympathetic older person who remembers the name(s) of the adoptive parents (and will tell you) - it's not quite the same, but I found my great-grandmother by persistently asking-around ... 

- Another just-maybe: visiting with the older priests and other on-reservation clergy, and with the older nurses at the hospital in the town where her mother was living when her brothers were born (especially if they were adopted-away as infants; one of the nurses might remember the adoption agency involved) ...

- Putting up your own website, thinking about meta-tags (indexing terms) that her brothers, looking for their relatives (including her), might use to 'search' with ... listing her website with the major search engines [submission to Google, Yahoo, and MSN are free, instructions via their home pages, it can take several months to get 'listed'] ... (and praying) ...