HELENA, Mont. — Montana’s beloved author, the late Ivan Doig, called livestock brands “the classical language of the American West.”
Doig and his wife Carol gifted the Montana Department of Livestock a donation to make the history of those brands more accessible to the public.
If you’d like to learn more about your family brand you can acquire a lot of information online.
Brand records have been compiled by the Montana Department of Livestock and supplied to the Montana Historical Society.
The Historical Society has digitized those records from the oldest registered brands to those registered through 2010.
Brands registered after 2010 haven’t been compiled yet.
“This is an important piece of family history,” said Montana Historical Society Library Manager Dan Karalus. “ It’s an important piece of Montana history in terms of the cattle industry, and genealogy for families. Families really think of it as part of their Montana heritage.”
“ If you want to view historical brands you can do it through our website where it says view historical brands,” said Department of Livestock Brands Division Administrator Jay Bodner, “ and it takes you to a link to the Montana Historical Society so you can look back at all of those old records.”
Jay said there are more than 51,000 brands in Montana.
Brand registrations were put in place in 1873,back when Montana was still a territory.
“It was the Wild West,” said Jay. “There were rustlers and thieves. People needed to be able to protect their property.”
And yes.
Cattle rustling still happens.
Jay showed us a cowhide from a rustling case that the department investigated about 40-years ago.
He showed NBC Montana a brand where a Y was turned into a K.
Today, DNA may verify if a brand has been altered.
“It proves ownership on livestock,” said Jay. “But it really is the fabric of the history of Montana because it proves livestock ownership, and it ties back to these legacy ranches that have been in the state of Montana before the state was a state.”
Through the Montana History Portal Debbie Tamcke has done extensive research on her family’s many brands.
“It’s part of the legacy of where our ancestors started,” said the Bannack area rancher. “It measures the grit and tenacity that my family had.”
First, Debbie wanted to learn more about her family’s 7 L brand.
It has ties to her mother Judy, and her siblings, who came from one of Beaverhead County’s oldest ranch families-the Roes.
Debbie learned the 7 L was registered on June 11, 1879, making it one of Montana’s oldest recorded brands.
But the 5 brand, the brand of her great-great grandfather William Roe, is even older.
It was registered in 1874.
Dan showed us that’s only a year after Montana’s first recorded brand.
“The first registrations date back to February 10, 1873, “he said. “The one at the top of the list is the Double X, which was registered to Poindexter and Orr.”
The Poindexter and Orr ranch was one of Montana’s most pre-eminent cattle ranches.
It’s now known as the Matador Ranch in Beaverhead County.
On his desk is a branding iron of another Poindexter Orr brand.
“This is a square and compass,” said Jay. “It was registered by Poindexter and Orr in 1873 in Montana, and it is a sign of the Masons.It’s still registered today, still active in Beaverhead County.”
Many of the oldest brands aren’t as refined as the Square and Compass.
They’re rather primitive.
Brands are designated for different locations on the animal, like right hip, left thigh, or right shoulder.
“With some families,” said Dan, “ it’s a way to trace where their families moved throughout Montana because that location travels with them.”
Dan sees this research as a mission, like completing a puzzle.
“I find the mystery part fun, “he said, “ or at least connecting the dots. As a historian I like to do research and fit those puzzle pieces together.”
The lingo of livestock brands is quintessential Montana.
Reading them requires a certain knowledge and familiarity.
Just read aloud some of them, like the Lazy M, A Hanging T, and E Bar H.
Call it lyrical poetry of the west.
“It is poetry,” said Jay, “ and it is history.”
For Debbie Tamcke it’s the poetry of layers and layers of her Montana roots, like “cattle, horses, freedom and wide-open spaces.”
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