GuidedResearch:Finding Town of Origin - United States Immigration

Do You Know When Your Ancestor Immigrated to the United States?
Click on the Migration Wave Covering the Year Your Ancestor Came to the United States.

Taylor's Sandbox 1

Intro
During the 1820s-1880s, the United States received a huge influx of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, and China. Many of these immigrants came because of economic or civil unrest at home, the cheap farmland available in the United States, or because of the California Gold Rush. Some immigrants, especially those who were unskilled laborers, stayed on the East Coast where the industrial revolution was bigger.

Major Ports During this Era
The Top 5 Major Ports
 * Baltimore
 * Boston
 * New Orleans
 * New York City
 * Philadelphia

Census Records
Beginning in 1850, the United States censuses listed the birthplace of a person. This information can be helpful in discovering the country of origin. Below is a table with possible immigration information found in the united States Census records. 

Naturalization Records
Since the adoption of the United States constitution, there have been naturalization laws and regulations in place. The naturalization process often took place in county courts. These types of courts varied between different states. County naturalization records can often be found in county supreme, circuit, district, equity, chancery, probate, or common pleas courts. Some states also naturalized aliens in state supreme courts. These states include Indiana, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, and South Dakota. Aliens were sometimes naturalized in a Federal court (U.S. district court or U.S. circuit court) if they resided in a large city.

The naturalization process took a minimum of five years to complete. After living in the United States for 2 years, a declaration of intent could be filed. This was called the "first papers." After another three years, the petition of naturalization could be filed. When this petition was granted, a certificate of citizenship was given.

Congress passed the first law regulating naturalization in 1790 (1 Stat. 103). As a general rule, naturalization was a two-step process that took a minimum of 5 years. After residing in the United States for 2 years, an alien could file a "declaration of intent" (so-called "first papers") to become a citizen. After 3 additional years, the alien could "petition for naturalization." After the petition was granted, a certificate of citizenship was issued to the alien. These two steps did not have to take place in the same court. As a general rule, the "declaration of intent" generally contains more genealogically useful information than the "petition." The "declaration" may include the alien's month and year (or possibly the exact date) of immigration into the United States.

Exceptions to the General Rule

Having stated this "two-step, 5-year" general rule, it is necessary to note several exceptions.

The first major exception was that "derivative" citizenship was granted to wives and minor children of naturalized men. From 1790 to 1922, wives of naturalized men automatically became citizens. This also meant that an alien woman who married a U.S. citizen automatically became a citizen. (Conversely, an American woman who married an alien lost her U.S. citizenship, even if she never left the United States.) From 1790 to 1940, children under the age of 21 automatically became naturalized citizens upon the naturalization of their father. Unfortunately, however, names and biographical information about wives and children are rarely included in declarations or petitions filed before September 1906. For more information about women in naturalization records, see Marian L. Smith, "Women and Naturalization, ca. 1802-1940," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 1998): 146-153.

The second major exception to the general rule was that, from 1824 to 1906, minor aliens who had lived in the United States 5 years before their 23rd birthday could file both their declarations and petitions at the same time.

The third major exception to the general rule was the special consideration given to veterans. An 1862 law allowed honorably discharged Army veterans of any war to petition for naturalization--without previously having filed a declaration of intent--after only 1 year of residence in the United States. An 1894 law extended the same no-previous-declaration privilege to honorably discharged 5-year veterans of the Navy or Marine Corps. Over 192,000 aliens were naturalized between May 9, 1918, and June 30, 1919, under an act of May 9, 1918, that allowed aliens serving in the U.S. armed forces during "the present war" to file a petition for naturalization without making a declaration of intent or proving 5 years' residence. Laws enacted in 1919, 1926, 1940, and 1952 continued various preferential treatment provisions for veterans.

The Records

It is impossible to provide hard-and-fast rules about the content or even the existence of naturalization records. The 1905 Report to the President of the Commission on Naturalization remarked:

The methods of making and keeping the naturalization records in both the Federal and State courts are as various as the procedure in such cases. Thus the declaration of intention in some courts consists merely of the bare statement of the intention and the name and allegiance of the alien, while in other courts it also includes a history of the alien.... In a majority of courts alien applicants are not required to make the declaration of intention required by law ... and in other courts he is. Previous to 1903 a majority of courts did not require petitions or affidavits; other courts did. Some courts keep a naturalization record separate from the other records; other courts include the naturalization record in the regular minutes of the court. Some records contain full histories of the aliens, but a majority of the records show only the name, nationality, oath of allegiance, and date of admission. In 1903 a Justice Department investigator made even more condemnatory comments:

I find the naturalization records in many cases in a chaotic condition, many lost and destroyed, and some sold for old paper. Most the records consist of merely the name and nativity of the alien with no means of identifying aliens ofthe same name....In numerous cases I find aliens naturalized under initials instead of Christian names, surnames misspelled or changed entirely, and names of witnesses inserted in place of the alien naturalized....The examination of the records discloses the remarkable fact that never, since the first enactment of the naturalization laws, has any record been made in any court of the names of minor children who, under the operation of the statutes, were made citizens by the naturalization of their parents.

The Location of these Records

County Court Records

Naturalization records from county courts may still be at the county court, in a county or State archives, or at a regional archives serving several counties within a State. Some of these records or indexes have been published, such as the Index of Naturalizations, Ashtabula County, Ohio, 1875-1906, published by the Ashtabula County Genealogical Society.

Do not be surprised if county court employees tell you that their naturalization records are at "the National Archives" or that their court never conducted naturalizations. Most current court employees are probably not genealogists and may not be familiar with the court's older records. It is up to the researcher to determine the location of older court records.

County Court Records in the National Archives

Women and children did not have to be naturalized

Court Records
paragraph of searching the community the person lived ==

Census Records
Beginning in 1850, the United States censuses listed the birthplace of a person. This information can be helpful in discovering the country of origin. Below is a table with possible immigration information found in the united States Census records. 

Click on the different record groups to learn what clues they can give and how to search them.

Census Records
Below is a table with possible immigration information found in the United States Census records.  Beginning in 1850, the United States censuses listed the birthplace of a person. This information can be helpful in knowing the country of origin. These earlier census records can also give clues as to when a family immigrated to the United States if some of the children were born in their homeland country and some in the United States. This is helpful in narrowing down the year of immigration. As noted in the table, some of the later censuses provide an estimated or exact year of immigration as well. NOTE: The immigration years can vary from census to census, especially if the person immigrated as a child and did not remember the year exactly.