RLP 292: Naturalization Records Part 1

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 292 Naturalization Records Part one. welcome to Research Like, a Pro a genealogy podcast about taking your research to the next level. Hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder Accredited genealogist professional Diana and Nicole are the mother daughter team at family Locket dot com and the authors of Research Like, a Pro A Genealogist guide with Robin Wirthlin. They also co-authored the Companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA, join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (42s):
Today’s episode is sponsored by newspapers.com, your go to resource for unlocking the stories of your ancestors. Hi everyone, welcome to Research Like, a Pro

Diana (52s):
Hi Nicole How, are you doing

Nicole (54s):
Well? I’m just loving this 14 day challenge. It’s so fun How about you.

Diana (60s):
I am too, and especially since I’m tackling something that I’ve never researched before and that is our Pennsylvania German immigrant, Johan Martin Schultz who arrives in 1731 in Philadelphia from the area that was Hessan DTE in Germany. This was part of the southeastern section of current Germany. It’s been so interesting because a couple weeks ago I took the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy course that was all about colonial immigration. The title of it was Immigration from Colonial Times to 1890 and it was coordinated by Josh Taylor and it was a wonderful course.

Diana (1m 40s):
And so as I’ve been doing this research on Martin Schultz, I have been thinking back on things that we learned in the course. And one of the things that Josh stressed at the beginning was if we are going to figure out our colonial ancestors, first of all, there usually are no records because they were British citizens. If they’re coming from England, they’re coming to British colonies. There was no need to have a record for them. But these German immigrants, they were worried about them coming in having this huge influx of Germans. And so in 1727 they passed the law that they had to go right down to the courthouse and give their oath of allegiance. Well, what I have found in doing the research is that there are so many iterations of these oaths of allegiance.

Diana (2m 27s):
There are so many derivatives and you can find published sources all over the place. They’re, they’re on books, they’re on ancestry. And so I have been trying to find the original bliss, and you won’t believe this, but I was on the Pennsylvania archives. It’s either the Library of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania archives now I can’t remember exactly the website and I am scrolling through the microfilm and these are the original lists. And the one that I need I think was skipped in the microfilming ’cause I have the exact date and I know exactly where it should be and I’ve gone backward and forward and I can’t find it. Wow. Anyway, but I have found much better derivatives.

Diana (3m 10s):
So I think I found the best derivative and it’s just been really interesting to see how the records have evolved on this process. And in some of them the name is spelled differently, things are arranged differently. And so the one that I found, he said, we went back through, looked at all the original records and feel like this is the best translation of the names or the best writing of the names because of course the handwriting’s a little tricky. You know, I can see all the originals on either side of the one I’m looking for. And yeah, it’s written in old handwriting and it’s German names and it’s not always that neat.

Diana (3m 50s):
So it is difficult to read. And so I’m very thankful for the derivatives, you know, that’s really, really helpful. Anyway, it’s been fun.

Nicole (3m 59s):
It is interesting when you see so far back in time there are a lot of derivatives created of records. So it’s interesting to kind of notice that and try to get to the original, which can be really challenging.

Diana (4m 10s):
It is. And I think it’s just important to really understand your source. You know, we talk a lot about that with creating a citation. You have to understand your source first, but in doing any kind of research, you really will benefit from digging in and figuring out why this source was created and who created it and where it came from and is it original or derivative. So it was just an a fun little lesson and really far back immigration information.

Nicole (4m 41s):
Wonderful. Well I wanted to share that I’ve been working On some updates to various Airtable Templates and the one I’ve been working On this week is the FAN Club Template. And I’ve been working On the syllabus for my NGS lecture about the FAN Club. And in doing so, I realized that I kinda do my FAN Club a little bit differently than when I first published the FAN Club Airtable Template. So I updated that and instead of using identifying numbers, I use the person’s name as it appears on the record. And then I used some formulas to help divide out that name, first name and last name. And you can also divide out suffix into its own field or column if there is a suffix like junior or senior or Esquire.

Nicole (5m 25s):
And that can help you sort and group your FAN Club two people with the same surname or you can alphabetize by surname to look for similar surnames. So that update is live. And I also in January, updated the Research Like a Pro with DNA template as well. So that’s on version 4.0 for 2024. Alright, well for our Webinar series for 2024, we have Melanie Witt presenting, identifying Henry Jacob Van’s mother, a 19th century DNA case study. This is a wonderful case. I have really enjoyed learning about it from Melanie. So I hope that you will be able to come and we are looking forward to Roots Tech at the end of the month and hope to see you there at our FamilyLocket booth.

Diana (6m 10s):
Well that’s going to be so fun to be in person and we love the in-person Roots Tech. Last year it was the first big conference or the first big roots tech back after the Covid years and it was so fun to see everyone and we’re excited for that again this year and to be giving some lectures and having a really good dose of genealogy for a few days. Well our subject for today is discussing Naturalization records and I wrote a series of blog posts called Back to the Basics with Naturalization records and this is part one. So it’s fun that I have been doing this research on immigration and thinking about these immigrant ancestors.

Diana (6m 55s):
And even though we didn’t have the country, you know, until after the revolution and it started having laws for naturalization, one of the things that I learned in my researching these Pennsylvania Germans was this whole idea of them having to go to the courthouse and say with oath that they would renounce their allegiance to the pope is who it was. Which is so interesting that that was actually a first step towards immigration laws or naturalization laws and records. So I know that all of us who are doing research here in the United States and we have ancestors that came from somewhere, we want to try to find more information about them and often we have no idea exactly where they came from.

Diana (7m 45s):
So you may not have known their village, their town, or even country of origin and maybe you have a family story or the census record might give you some clues, but so many times there’s conflicting information. And so a naturalization records can give us some more details and give us more hints to the Ancestors homeland. And so we’re going to talk about these naturalization records just in and of themself and not really a part of immigration records like ship passenger lists.

Nicole (8m 19s):
Well, naturalization records are wonderful. I’m glad we’re doing this series and that you wrote these blog posts.

Diana (8m 27s):
Yes, I learn a lot every time I do a blog post and gather up all the information. So it’s really true. When you write something you learn it so much better.

Nicole (8m 37s):
Alright, well let’s talk about why we need to use naturalization records. So you’re probably familiar with using census records and how they provide families names and relationships. And you’re probably familiar with vital records as well, how they provide direct evidence of birth, marriage and death information. Obituaries also can name numerous family members, but what value do naturalization records have for Genealogists? Some of the information that could be included is nation of origin, foreign and Americanized names, residents and date of arrival. Now in and of itself, these questions are interesting to many people who want to know information about their family history.

Nicole (9m 22s):
But if you’re just trying to find about a person’s parents, this can also help you in your search. When our Ancestors arrived in the United States, they likely wanted to become citizens and having left their homelands behind, they embrace their new country and the right to vote and own land that came with citizenship. Though these records can be more challenging to Discover, they add another piece to the puzzle of our ancestors’ lives and are part of reasonably exhaustive research. If you’re looking to jump the pond back to the old country, these can be invaluable. A naturalization record before in 1906 may not reveal a specific village, but it will always name the home country of your ancestor.

Nicole (10m 2s):
Unfortunately, this era of record keeping was not standardized and it’s always possible that additional information wasn’t kept or was kept. So you may find that the ancestors homeland was more specific than just a country. Maybe a helpful clerk wrote in additional facts. Without searching for the records, you’ll never know what it might contain,

Diana (10m 26s):
Right? So let’s talk about the naturalization process and the type of records that could be created. So there was a multi-step process to become a United States citizen, and in your census research you may have noticed off to the right of the names and relationships, there was a column for citizenship in several of the censuses that we will talk about a little bit later. But you may have noticed these initials, A-L-P-A-N-A-R-N-R written in that column that was about citizenship. So what did those mean? Well, a l signified an alien or non-citizen PA meant a declaration of intent had been filed and sometimes this is called first papers.

Diana (11m 12s):
So the PA would stand for papers, NA denoted a naturalized citizen. This would be someone who had gone through the process and was naturalized and NR stood for not reported. And as I said, different census years reported various information on citizenship and some years reported nothing. So we’re going to use as a case study for this episode, one of my ancestors and the one that I decided to look for naturalization record was my second great-grandfather, William Beddoes. And he immigrated in the mid 18 hundreds, as did all my maternal ancestors. My paternal Ancestors are those colonial ancestors who besides the Pennsylvania Germans don’t have, you don’t have records of when they came or of anything about them with that far back research.

Diana (12m 3s):
So William Beddoes, however, came over in the mid 18 hundreds and the 19 hundreds census gives a year of his immigration, which is 1868. It also tells us he was 32 years in the US and citizenship says that he was naturalized. So I was really curious to find records. Now it’s great that I have got those years of his arrival of 1868 because that will give me a little bit more of a window of time to research. Many people sought citizenship within five years of their arrival so they could vote and on land, and this really depends on the laws at that time and place.

Diana (12m 51s):
So William would have gone through these steps to become a citizen. He would’ve filed his declaration of Intention or first papers, he would’ve met the residency requirement, which was usually five years. Then he would have to submit a petition for naturalization, and this was also known as second or final papers. He would then take an oath of allegiance or naturalization oath and that could be filed with the other documents and then he would receive a certificate of Naturalization.

Nicole (13m 21s):
Great overview of the process. Now how do we locate a Naturalization record? Well, one thing to check is the 1920 census, and if your ancestor was listed on that census, the year of naturalization was included in the citizenship section. So that’s exciting. Viewing the census for William Beddoes, we see that the year 1872 was written in both William line and that of his wife Raya. Did she also have to go through the naturalization process? And this is interesting. No. During this time period, a woman automatically became a citizen through her husband. And I remember learning that when I was in the Intermediate Foundations course at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy and just thinking, wow, like women really were just subsumed into the man that they were connected to throughout most of the United States history until the Women’s rights movement,

Diana (14m 13s):
Right?

Nicole (14m 13s):
So anyways, so she would’ve been considered as part of her husband, so she would’ve naturally became a citizen through him. Well, William’s children also were part of his citizenship. So children under 16 automatically became citizens when he became a citizen. Because the Naturalization laws changed throughout history, we always have to consult the law. At the time your ancestor was seeking Naturalization to make sure that these laws were still applicable as far as the age of the children and the woman receiving citizenship at the same time. While narrowing the search to a specific timeframe is important because these proceedings may have gone through various court levels, maybe a federal level, state or local court as long as it had the authority to grant citizenship.

Nicole (14m 57s):
Each locality has its own court system. So you may see terms such as superior or common plea courts on the county level. A state US Circuit court could have been used as well as a district court. Other courts on the local level could be municipal, police, criminal or probate courts. Another interesting thing to think about when searching for a naturalization record is the possibility that he filed his first papers in one court, then moved on and completed the petition for naturalization in another location. So tracking your ancestor and all the available records of his life will give you clues to narrow the surge and help you know where to look.

Nicole (15m 40s):
In the case of William Beddoes, he stated a Naturalization year of 1872. So the 1870 census would be the best indication of his locality in 1872. That census reveals his residence in Pond Town, Utah County Utah. The 1870 census included a final column titled Constitutional Relations and asked if a person was a male citizen of us of 21 years of age and upward as expected. Williams line does not have a tick mark like the other men on the page because he had not yet been granted citizenship.

Diana (16m 16s):
So interesting when you’re putting all these records together and trying to imagine what their lives were like and what things they were going through. Well, let’s have a word from our sponsors, newspapers.com dive into the newspapers where your family’s history unfolds as you search nearly a billion pages in seconds. newspapers.com offers an unparalleled treasure trove of historical newspapers providing a window into the past with papers from the 17th century to today. newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive. It’s the gold mine for anyone seeking to uncover stories from the past. Whether you’re a seasoned genealogist or just starting your journey, newspapers.com makes it easy to search for obituaries, birth announcements and the everyday stories that shaped your family.

Diana (17m 5s):
It’s like having a time machine at your fingertips. And here’s the best part, our listeners get an exclusive offer. Use promo code family lockup for a 20% discount on your subscription. That’s FamilyLocket at newspapers.com. Sign up to date@newspapers.com and embark on a journey of discovery. Well, let’s talk about searching the records. And whenever I’m doing naturalization genealogy research, I always want to start with the Family search catalog because Williams 1870 Census showed him in Utah County Utah. I started with that location and went to the naturalization records category. There were several collections listed, but I scrolled through and found the most likely collection and it was titled Utah Utah County Naturalization Records 1859 to 1927.

Diana (17m 56s):
So that’s a pretty big range and I saw that it contained the records of two different courts, those for Utah County and Utah territory. And I knew that statehood didn’t occur until 1896. So William would’ve used territorial courts. And this can be part of our locality research as we learn about the court system used in the specific time and place of our ancestors to understand the records. And that will also help us to choose the correct collection or know to search. So when I selected the Utah Utah County Naturalization records, I came to a page that detailed those records and I saw that I could view digital images hooray.

Diana (18m 37s):
And I saw they were also not available on microfilm. So this was an example of the many records family searches, digitizing and going straight to digital images. So they did have an option to click here for viewing the digital images. And I was taken first to a page that you just put in your ancestors’ name to do a search and that brought no results. So you may do that and then feel discouraged because you feel like your person’s not there. But really it might just be that this is not indexed yet and eventually it will be indexed and you could find them by name. So in this scenario, I always use the browse because I wanna search for myself.

Diana (19m 18s):
And so I actually got to the digitized record. So this was the path I had to follow. So first I said browse through 105,474 images. That’s a lot of images. And then I would select Naturalization records and then Declarations of Intention 1871 to 1875. So hopefully you can see because I had done the work with his timeline, I had narrowed it down and that was so very helpful when I clicked into it, I saw that it was a bunch of images, but I always like to go to the very beginning and see what this is coming from. And in this case it was from a book and that book had an index.

Diana (20m 1s):
So I’m always looking for an internal index so I can see if I can easily find my person. I was excited to see there on the B page was William Beddoes, which was so great. So William Beddoes was on page nine. So then I just had to scroll ahead to page nine and there was his declaration of Intention to become a citizen of the United States of America. Now because he was English, he renounced his sovereignty to Queen Victoria. And unfortunately we don’t know if he was really from England based on this record. He could have been Scottish Welch or Irish. But I do know he went to court and started the naturalization process on 28 June, 1873.

Diana (20m 46s):
And the census records do state his country of origin is England, but this adds another piece of evidence to his origins. So an interesting thing is that on the 1920 census, Williams stated he was naturalized in 1872, but the document clearly states he began the process in 1873. So you know, both are original sources, but the one created at the time event would provide more accurate information unless he was just saying 19 in 1872 he finished his naturalization. So it can be kind of tricky. I believe that we always want to give our ancestors some grace when they’re trying to remember things from many years ago.

Diana (21m 30s):
’cause that census was 50 years after this event. So as we seek out these records, we can try to put things in order and see what really makes sense. The next step for William was to meet the residency requirement and then submit his petition for final papers. And so I wanted to search more records to Discover that petition for naturalization and his oath of citizenship.

Nicole (21m 55s):
Well, it was so exciting to hear you talk about finding that on the B page of the internal index. I love it when you find that name right there and you just, you get to go right to the record that you’re seeking without further ado

Diana (22m 8s):
Makes it easier.

Nicole (22m 10s):
Unlike your search for Johann Schultz can’t find him.

Diana (22m 17s):
Yes, yes. These later records are much easier to search.

Nicole (22m 21s):
Well, let’s talk about some tips for applying this to your own Naturalization research. So start with a survey of known records for your Ancestors to determine when they might have immigrated to the us. Make your timeline, look at census records, military papers, voting registers, passports, city directories, homestead clues that will give you a specific timeframe and location where your ancestor might have begun the process. And if you know where he or she lived at all these times, that can help you know where to look. And remember that your ancestor might have begun the process and filed a declaration of Intention even if he didn’t complete the process.

Nicole (23m 0s):
And we’ll share an example of that in a future episode. You can also use the family search catalog to find the naturalization records for the time and the place and search the records using the index records first, and then use the browse feature, then track the searches in a Research Log. And if there are no results, expand the search to other nearby courts or other timeframes. And that Research Log piece is so important because you probably will have some negative search results, especially if there were multiple places where your ancestor could have gone to court to start the process. So keeping track of what courts you’ve already checked will be key,

Diana (23m 39s):
Right? This can be particularly frustrating if they naturalized between 1880 and 1900 because we don’t have in most places the 1890 census. So if they started the naturalization process and then they’re moving around, you may have to search several different courts to try to figure out where they were and where their records would be, which is why it’s so important to do that timeline. Try to track ’em down best you can. So let’s go through the census records. So you just get an idea of which census records report citizenship. And you may not have even noticed some of these categories as you were doing your census work. So in 1820 that census way back, you will get the number of foreigners not naturalized in the household.

Diana (24m 25s):
So this is always fun to see, to get an idea. And then in 1830 you have again the number of white aliens or foreigners, not naturalized. And then we don’t get anything until 1870. And in 1870 we have male citizens 21 and over and the number of such. So like with William Beddoes, they’ll have a check mark if they were a citizen. And then you can see if they weren’t a citizen by 1870. And then again, we don’t get anything till 1900, which is the first census where we get some really good details. And that will have the year of immigration to the US the number of years in the us, whether still an alien or having applied for citizenship or naturalized.

Diana (25m 6s):
And then in these censuses 1900 to 1940, we get those letters al for alien PA for first papers filed and A for naturalized in 1910. We see for foreign born males 21 years or older, whether they’re naturalized or alien, same in 1920, whether naturalized or alien and a year of naturalization. And that’s the only census to give you that specific year. Then in 1930, again, year of immigration and weather naturalized 1940, the birthplace citizenship if foreign born. And they add some designation of am fit for American citizen born abroad, which is very interesting.

Diana (25m 51s):
Hmm. So those 1900 to 1940 censuses, if your ancestor lived long enough to be in any of those, can give you some really good clues. But just know this is a little fact that if it’s not the actual ancestor who naturalized or immigrated and someone else in the household is giving the information, I see a lot of blanks because they simply didn’t know. So it really depends on your informant, but you have to check ’cause you might get great information.

Nicole (26m 21s):
There’s so much information in the census records and a lot of the time we don’t even think of this, especially for 1820 and 1830. How many times have you actually thought to yourself, I’m gonna go find out if my ancestor was a citizen in 1820. I think that’s so interesting. It makes you wanna go check all of our ancestors. You know, one time I did get confused because the column headers are usually not even written on the page where ancestor was listed unless they’re on the first page of the county or the city. And so I had kind of counted the columns and the column for the citizenship in 1820 was in the crack of the book. And so it just had kind of gotten lost.

Nicole (27m 1s):
And so when I, I mistranscribed it as, oh, my ancestor is not a citizen what? Because it said number of foreigners not naturalized. And it looked like there was a tick in that column. But then I realized everybody was having one person, it was a foreigner, not naturalized, and it wasn’t an area normal for immigration from Europe. So I finally realized that it was actually for the column about how many people are engaged in farming.

Diana (27m 30s):
Oh, a little bit different. That’s so funny.

Nicole (27m 34s):
And that column for the foreigners, not naturalized, had just kind of gotten lost in the the binding area.

Diana (27m 40s):
Interesting.

Nicole (27m 41s):
Anyways, something interesting to look at if you think you have a foreign or not naturalized in your family tree in 1820 and 1830.

Diana (27m 49s):
Right.

Nicole (27m 50s):
Well thanks everyone for listening today. We hope that you’ll seek out some naturalization records. Many of them are digitized and you might be surprised with what you can find in the family search catalog, browse only images. Well, good luck with your search and next week we will talk to you again with part two of naturalization records to talk more about the laws.

Diana (28m 8s):
All right, well have a great week everyone, and we’ll talk to you next time. Bye-Bye bye.

Nicole (28m 14s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like, a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket dot com slash services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday. Subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket dot com slash newsletter. Please Subscribe rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.