Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat
Certificate of the record
The Posterity: Unascertained — The Crown named a class in 1779, marked it in 1789, and in 1796 set the oath by which each of them would be known: an oath never taken. The Register takes it now.
POS001-261030-000002 · version 1 · A draft — not yet for use
What it is
Two registers side by side, the Crown’s as it ordered it kept in 1789 and 1796, with the clerk’s heading and one ghost name never sworn and nothing beneath, stamped with no entry for the class from 1796 to 2026, and the Nation’s, filling line by line with sworn members, the same name first, each with the village of its Loyalist ancestor and a Record Code; you with the generations of your line drawn as people running to a founder marked UE, the magistrate beside the oath, the same office in 1796 and today; a hundred people on the Grand River, Mohawk and the other five nations, nearly all of Loyalist descent, beside a hundred in Brantford, few of them Six Nations; two marks on one line, the three villages for a Mohawk and the Mark of Honour for the rest; the duty dated along a strip; you with the pegs of your line running to a founder of the three villages, the class defined, and the test stated, the village, since on the Grand River almost everyone descends from Loyalists and whether a line runs to the three villages is for each to find, peg by peg; the oath of 1796 and what became of it, Dorchester’s Order, Simcoe’s Proclamation in its own words, what it required, the missing link, and what the Nation asks by Gazette No. 63; how the Register ascertains a line today in six pegs, and what the line gives and who keeps it. The web edition tells the line’s story, a desk with a computer where the paper grows poof by poof as the pegs appear, the Loyalist Mohawk waving back, the coronet thrown to your hand with the mark UE at your side, and the desk giving way to the magistrate beside you; fills the Nation’s page line by line, has one more of the hundred on the Grand River find out every few seconds and wave, and answers a tap on any plum figure with a puff of smoke: most find a line and turn gold, waving; some find none and shrug, both arms out; a tap on one who knows pops a heart; a third of them puff hearts instead and go the extra mile; a tap on a shrugger brings hearts and another way for half of them, while the rest walk away from it, as some do.
| Its date | 2026-10-29e |
| Made by | Mohawk’s Printer for Grand River |
| Their qualifications | Drawn by Mohawk’s Printer for Grand River from the National Books’ own data; Book VI, Honours, Heraldry and Ceremony; Books II and XVI shows it on a page of its own. |
| Their duty | Not recorded. |
| Its standing as a survey | This is the Nation’s determination, made from the sources named; it is not a survey under the Surveyors Act, and was not prepared by a licensed surveyor. |
| Datum and projection | Not a map; the Three Villages’ inset keeps the land map’s datum (NAD83 / UTM zone 17N). |
How it was made
An illustration, drawn from the sources below; printed in A3 landscape (420 × 297 mm), with A2 and A1 print files, 3 mm bleed and crop marks.
How surely
An illustration, not a survey: the figures stand for no particular family. The Three Villages’ inset is the Register’s own land map, drawn from its layers.
A poster: it teaches, and does not decide. The record of any person’s line is the Register’s.
Its sources
- Honours, Heraldry and Ceremony, Book VI — Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat, 2026; the Nation’s own
- The Acquired Territory Doctrine, Book II — Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat, 2026; the Nation’s own
- Dorchester’s Order in Council, 9 November 1789; Simcoe’s Proclamation, 6 April 1796 — the Crown; the instruments
- The Gazette of the Nation, No. 63 — Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat, 2026; the Nation’s own
What it carries
✓ A title · ✓ Its maker · ✓ Its date · ✓ A scale bar · ✓ A scale ratio (1 : n) · ✓ North · ✓ A legend · ✓ Its datum and projection · ✓ Its sources, with their dates · ✓ A statement of its accuracy · ✓ A locator (where it is in the wider world) · ✓ Its credits and licences
Its files, and their fingerprints (SHA-256)
Its entries in the integrity log
How the records are kept
The records of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat are kept in the Nation’s Register, an electronic records system kept in the usual and ordinary course of the Secretariat’s work. When a file is taken into the Map Room its SHA-256 fingerprint is taken at once and entered in the Register’s integrity log, in which every entry is sealed with the fingerprint of the entry before it; a certified version’s files cannot be changed, and a change makes a new version, the old being kept. At the date of this certificate the log holds 36 entries and, read through, every entry seals the one before it.
To cite it
Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat, The Posterity: Unascertained (poster), POS001-261030-000002, version 1, 28 October 2026. https://mohawkuniversity.org/Register/verify/POS001-261030-000002
A draft affidavit of the custodian of the records
To be read with counsel before it is used; to be sworn or affirmed before a commissioner.
I, ______________________, of ______________________, MAKE OATH (or AFFIRM) AND SAY:
1. I am the ______________________ of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat, and have the keeping of its records, and so have knowledge of the matters below.
2. Attached as Exhibit “___” is a true copy of the record POS001-261030-000002, version 1, “The Posterity: Unascertained”, as it is kept in the Secretariat’s records.
3. The records of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat are kept in the Nation’s Register, an electronic records system kept in the usual and ordinary course of the Secretariat’s work. When a file is taken into the Map Room its SHA-256 fingerprint is taken at once and entered in the Register’s integrity log, in which every entry is sealed with the fingerprint of the entry before it; a certified version’s files cannot be changed, and a change makes a new version, the old being kept. At the date of this certificate the log holds 36 entries and, read through, every entry seals the one before it.
4. The SHA-256 fingerprint of each file of the record, as it was taken into the records, is set out in the certificate of the record attached; the fingerprint of the copy attached is the same.
5. To my knowledge the system was at all material times operating properly, and nothing in it has been altered except as recorded in its integrity log.
SWORN (or AFFIRMED) before me at ______________________, on ______________________.
Electronic documents are received as evidence on proof that they are what they purport to be, and of the integrity of the system that kept them (Canada Evidence Act, ss. 31.1–31.3; Evidence Act (Ontario), s. 34.1). This certificate sets out that record; whether a record is admitted, and its weight, are for the court.
Scan the railing with the Register’s scanner, mohawkuniversity.org/Register/edge-scan/, or type the address beneath it.