When many Americans look back into their family’s history, they eagerly search for details about which ancestor was the first to come to America and when they arrived. Immigration records are a common resource for people who are looking for answers about ancestors’ journeys to America. Part of the journey to America also includes becoming an American citizen. Naturalization is the process by which citizenship is granted to people who have come to America.
Naturalization records were kept since the late 1700’s, but the process became much more uniform in the early 1900’s. Although the process was not uniform, the records have been preserved but you may have to spend time looking in various courts and on various types of forms for your ancestors’ information. In 1906, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was created (the agency is now called USCIS) and the process of naturalization became much more uniform than it had been before that time.
To make things even trickier to track down, since there were multiple steps to the naturalization process, your ancestor may have moved around in between completing those steps. Initially, they may have settled somewhere close to their port of entry and filed a Declaration of Intention there. Later on, they may have followed work or other opportunities to an entirely different place before completing the rest of the steps in the process. Fortunately, other types of records like census data can help you determine where your ancestors were located and at what times so you can get an idea of where to begin looking for naturalization information. Some of the censuses also contain information about the citizenship status of people in each household, which can further assist you in tracking your ancestors’ paths to citizenship.
While naturalization records can help you to understand how and when your ancestors became citizens, they can be somewhat difficult to locate and may not provide as much information as you think that they would. Spend a little time looking for them, but if they prove to be elusive you may find similar information later on in other records or you may find a clue as to where the naturalization records might be.
Photo by bandini on morguefile.com.