To start off I want to remind everyone of a conference on computerized Family History and Genealogy at BYU on March 14 and 15. It should be good. For more info go to http://familyhistoryconferences.byu.edu .
Immigration and Naturalization Records can be a key in linking your family back to the other side of the Atlantic. Have you searched them? The Family History Library probably has the biggest collection of Naturalization Records and a good amount of Immigration records including passenger lists. Ancestry.com also has a great collection of these records that are already indexed and fairly simple to search. Two other great places to go is Ellisisland.org where you can sign up for free and search in there database and view that passenger list of your ancestor and even CastleGarden's free search website. The National Archives also holds probably the majority of all passenger lists and immigration type records. It is a little more complicated to use and costs about $25 or order one film and often times it may be necessary to actually go there.
After all this has been said let me explain a little about these records.
Passenger Lists
Unfortunately there are no complete collection of passenger lists.
From early colonial times until about 1820:
- Kept by colonies and states where the port was located. The colonies and states made their own requirements from captains as to what information about passengers was required.
- The records are kept in the port city or the state archives of the state
Naturalization (Citizenship) Records:
- There was no comprehensive regulation of naturalization until 1906, when Congress established the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, before some naturalization took place mostly within the jurisdiction of the courts. The last 75 years are confidential.
- There are three steps in the citizenship process
- Declaration of intention (first papers)
- Usually filed soon after their coming to the U.S. can contain biographical information.
- Petition for Naturalization (second or final papers)
- Formal applications submitted to the court clerk by individuals who had met the residency requirements and who had declared their intention to become citizen.
- Certificates of Naturalization
- They were issued on completion of all citizenship requirements.
-Began in 1795
-Before 1930 these records are on microfilm at the FHL
-Not everyone, but some people would obtain a passort as they traveled back and forth between countries. You may find more out about your ancestor through this document.
Ellis Island
- Between 1892-1954 approximately 12 million people were processed in the facilities. It is estimated that today 40% of all Americans can trace their roots to at least one person who passed through the center.
- Statue of Liberty Ellis Island foundation-computerized the records. http://www.ellisisland.org/
- Castle Garden, America's first official immigration center, (http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/exit.html?link=http://www.castlegarden.org) has an online searchable database of 10 million immigrants from 1830 through 1892, the year Ellis Island opened.
They Became Americans: Finding Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins, by Loretto Dennis Szucs American Naturalization Records, 1790-1990, by John J. Newman.
A Bibliography of Ship Passenger Lists, 1583-1825 (New York: New York Public Library), third edition, 1978, by Harold Lancour.
They Came in Ships : A Guide to Finding Your Immigrant ancestor’s arrival record,Salt Lake City, UT, by John Philip Colletta.
