Published September 15, 2020
| 1 Comment | Leave A ReplyIt’s always enjoyable to get inquiries from longtime “Roots & Branches” readers, especially ones such as Thomas R. Liszka, an associate professor emeritus of English from Penn State Altoona.
His most recently question has pointed up an anomaly of U.S. naturalization history that’s worth sharing.
“I just ran across an anomaly,” Liszka related. “My great-aunt Cecelia was born in Chicago (in 1888), as were all of her seven siblings, including my grandmother, and so they were U.S. citizens. Her parents and husband, though, were born in Poland. Nevertheless, I see that in 1940 she applied for naturalization!”
Liszka said he supposed that she could have been confused about the need to do so. “But I can’t imagine the clerk at the naturalization office not pointing out to her that she didn’t have to do this,” he wrote. “She even states on her application that she was born in Chicago. Can you think of any rationale or advantage for her having done so? None of her siblings did likewise.”
He also was sure the application wasn’t for a similarly named person since her birthday and husband’s and children’s names are all correct.
Since my specialties tilt toward 18th century German immigrants, I’m less conversant with the laws involving 20th century naturalization but I did recall there was a quirky period, when a woman actually lost her citizenship if she married an alien.
Fortunately, I’m blessed to have in my professional network Rich Venezia of Rich Roots Genealogy, who is not only more conversant with this situation but knows the immigration and naturalization laws cold, so I reached out to him regarding Liszka’s anomaly.
“Yes—if his great aunt’s marriage occurred between 2 March 1907 and 22 September 1922 (which seems likely if she was born in 1888), she lost her citizenship upon her marriage to an alien,” Venezia responded. “If her husband naturalized before 22 September 1922, she automatically gained U.S. citizenship back. Seemingly, he didn’t naturalize before then (if ever), so she needed to repatriate. She could only do so starting in 1940, if she was still married to the husband who caused her to lose her citizenship.”
Basically this is a case in which Liszka was ready to make a petty logical assumption—one that I easily could see myself making in a similar situation—but one that would have been dead wrong.
As Liszka noted, “This is an eye-opener!” And he and I both agreed that in the case of relatives who’ve passed on, we wish we had just 10 minutes more with them!
And then Liszka closed the conversation by asking if I was old enough to remember, “Well, King, this case is closed,” the tagline from the TV show Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Well, not quite, but Google filled me in.
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Donna Jones
4 years ago
This is great, interesting information and highlights so many changes over time with immigration policies. I know my grandmother didn’t get her naturalization until 1943. She was worried that the U.S. government had declared that Italians were “Enemy Aliens” during WWII.