This article reflects the results of a comparative analysis of historical sources that show the nature and characteristics of clan-ruling relations in Northern and Central Kazakhstan, which were the northern gates of the Kazakh Khanate, in the period from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. This is the period when the annexation of the Middle Zhuz took place by the Russian Empire. Traditional tribal relations of the patriarchal type are still noted in the region, based on classical nomadic animal husbandry as a special way of managing the economy of the Kazakh people. However, there are characteristic changes in tribal relations, expressed in a gradual change of the power of Genghisides. They are being replaced by sultans and volosts more loyal to the tsarist government, many of whom were from the common people. The power of the khans was abolished by the Russian colonial authorities from outside. The institutions of biys and qazis still retain their strength, and the institution of Tarkhanism are developing. The influence of imperial power on the peoples and the system of traditional family relations was constantly growing. The institution of aksakals of Kazakh society continued to retain its functional features until the 1930s. The study of the traditional organization and institution of the ancestral rulers of the aksakals is also associated with the question of Kazakh ethnicity and ethnic identity. Ethnicity, as a specific property of a certain community of people, distinguishing them from others and denoting special and characteristic cultural features, included such particularly significant elements as ethnic self-consciousness, including the idea of a common consanguineous, kinship and ancestral origin, and the historical memory of connection with a certain territory as the dwelling place of their forefathers and ancestors; corporate solidarity, built on the fundamental principles of kinship and property, with legendary family histories and dynastic traditions of the clan and tribe; spiritual values that serve to consolidate and support the interests of the unity of the ethnic corporation cluster. The consolidated ethnic environment of the Kazakh society was especially distinguished by a single common territory, common land use on a communal basis, consanguineous ethnic identity, social, cultural, and economic interconnection. The analysis of the clan structure reveals the importance of ethno-social organization in the formation of a generalized idea of the unity of an ethnic territory through the history of clan organizations, which, in turn, formed the order of communal land tenure and legitimized it.