Carry the history.
Keep your research.
Native Past for iPhone and Android brings together everything on this site — and adds a private research space that never leaves your device. Learn the history and living languages of 15 Native nations; search the records; and build your family's story with the documents to back it up.
Now on the App Store and Google Play. Free, with an optional Pro subscription that removes ads.
Six things the app does
History, nation by nation
173 illustrated chapters across 15 nations — origins, removal, rebuilding, and the present day — written in the present tense, because these nations are here now. Stories and notable figures included, sources cited on every item.
Language lessons
187 gentle, Duolingo-style lessons and 950+ verified words and phrases across 12 nations. Each course starts with the writing system — the Cherokee syllabary, the Osage script, the Choctaw alphabet — then teaches everyday vocabulary, with no-stakes practice review. Every word is verified against cited sources; nothing is machine-invented. Where the sources can't yet support a course, a nation is included for its history alone rather than guessed at.
The records search, in your pocket
The same search as this site: 248,000+ records across the Dawes Rolls and eleven more record sets, with family census cards, documented connections, machine-read finding aids honestly labeled, and a deep link to every original document at the National Archives.
Your family documents — read on your device
Import photos and PDFs of your own family records. The app reads them on your phone — names, roll numbers, card numbers — and draws a map of the connections it finds between documents. Anything it gets wrong, you can correct or remove; anything it misses, you can add. Notes on every document.
A family tree, linked to proof
Build lineage the simple way — parents above, children below — and attach documents from your vault to any person, so every branch of the tree can point at the record behind it.
Private by design
Your documents, tree, and notes live on your device and in your own device backups — yours, under your control. Nothing you import is ever uploaded to Native Past; the only thing the app sends over the network is your records search.
The history and language content works fully offline and reads in 33 languages (machine-translated outside English, and labeled as such in the app), and the app is free with ads; Pro ($0.99/month or $5.99/year) removes them. Native Past is an educational research aid — not affiliated with or endorsed by any tribal government, and never an authority on enrollment.