All title source documents and records pertaining to trust or restricted lands on 21 Indian reservations have now been transferred from Washington, D. C. , to area offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Aberdeen, S. Dak.; Billings, Mont. j Gallup, N. Mex.; and Portland, Oreg., the Department of the Interior announced today.
The transfer, Commissioner Philleo Nash emphasized, has involved only the land records formerly maintained in Washington and not those kept at the Bureau's agency offices.
Transferred to the Aberdeen Area Office were the records for the Omaha, Ponca, Santee and Winnebago Reservations in Nebraska; the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Reservations in South Dakota; and the Sisseton Reservation in North and South Dakota.
Records which went to the Billings Office were for the Blackfeet, Fort Belknap, Fort Peck and Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
The Gallup Area Office received records for the Alamo, Canoncito and Ramah Navajo communities and the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and for the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
The transfer to Portland involved records for the Colville, Port Madison and Tulalip Reservations in Washington.
The transfers so far accomplished, Commissioner Nash explained, represent only the first step in a process which will eventually involve all Indian land records now maintained in Washington
