Annuity payment rolls, 1841-1949, consist chiefly of receipt rolls for periodic annuity payments to individual Indians. Also included are rolls for equalization payments (money instead of land allotments); the distribution of proceeds of sales of townsites, timber, and mineral rights; compensation for improvements on ceded land; payments for expenses of removal; and other payments. The rolls sometimes give personal information about an Indian, such as age, sex, degree of Indian blood, and relationship to the head of family. They are arranged for most part alphabetically by name of tribe or band and thereunder chronologically. The individual rolls are usually arranged by family groups, sometimes alphabetically by surname but usually in no discernible order. Annunity payment rolls are often the best means of determining the members of a tribe or band for the period before 1884, when the annual census rolls began to be made.

The Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940, were usually submitted each year by agents or superintendents in charge of Indian reservations, as required by an act of July 4, 1884. The Indian agencies were established gradually and were organized more on a geographical than tribal basis. Agency names, superintendency, and/or jurisdictions may have changed as territories became states and the tribes were removed to other locals. The data on the rolls vary to some extant, but usually given are the English and/or Indian name of the person, roll number, age or date of birth, sex, and relationship to head of family. There is not a census for every reservation or group of Indians for every year. Only persons who maintained a formal affiliation with a tribe under federal supervision are listed on these census rolls.

The first federal decennial census that enumerated Indians as a separate race was the one taken in 1860. For this and the 1870 census, however, only Indians living with the general population were counted. In 1880 an attempt was made to enumerate non-taxed Indians, which meant those living on reservations. A special schedule was prepared, but it was used only for a few reservations near military installations. There are schedules in the National Archives for those Indians in Washington Territory under the Yakima Agency near Fort Simcoe and the Tulalip Agency; the Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, and Oglala Sioux of the Standing Rock Agency near Fort Yates, Dakota Territory; and the various tribes of the Round Valley Reservation, California. The census was to include all Indians living on October 1, 1880. Members of families who died after that date were included, but children born after that date were omitted. The schedule called for the name of the tribe, reservation, agency, and nearest post office; the number in the household and a description of the dwelling; and the Indian name (with an English translation) of each person in the family, his relationship to the head of the family, marital and tribal status, description, and information about occupation, health, education, ownership of property, and source of subsistence. Often the enumerator was unable to furnish all the data required, but in some cases information was added about tribal customs or living conditions.