Naturalization Records Are Where It’s At
I love, Love, LOVE Naturalization records! They are one of my favorite set of documents to use for genealogy research. Besides listing the birth date and place of a person, they often contain the exact date of immigration and the name of the ship (making my research into passenger lists SO much easier). Frequently, spouses are listed as well as children with their dates of birth. They are little goldmines of information and sometimes contain a peek into the personality of the petitioner, if you pay close attention to the details.
Yesterday two collections of naturalization records indexed by the Ancestry World Archives community were RELEASED TO SEARCH. And, I’ve already found a relative in one of them. Hooray! (I found him in the California database. Not Delaware. I don’t have a single person in my entire genealogy database who lived in Delaware. Weird.)
California Naturalization Originals
These records are for Los Angeles and San Diego counties and span the years 1876 to 1940. We added them to the database titled, U.S. Naturalization Records – Original Documents, 1795-1972, along with some of the other naturalization originals our AWAP community has completed over the past couple of years.
Delaware Naturalization Originals
These records are for all three counties in the state of Delaware. There are certificates of naturalization from 1858-1906. There are petitions for naturalization from 1907-1958. And, there are declarations of intention from 1858-1957.
Remember most of those petitions and declarations contain more than one page. So, if you find what you are looking for, be sure to go forward and backward a few images from where you land to make sure you see it all.
Project of the Day Challenge
In honor of the release of two of our naturalization collections, we are issuing another Project of the Day challenge. The top three arbitrators on the New York Naturalization Originals collection will receive a three month, World Deluxe subscription to Ancestry.com (or subscription extension). This challenge will run all day (U.S., Mountain Time), Wednesday, August 31st. Any image sets completed and submitted on this day are eligible. Good luck!
Until next time – Happy Keying!
Hi Crista, my grandfathers siblings went to California. One of them desseapeared! His name was Neil Sabel, born in Sweden 1876, he was 16 years old, we can not find him! Could you help?