ROOTS & BRANCHES

There are many ways to skin a cat.

I’m not sure where that old saying comes from—and not curious enough even to Google it and try to find out—but it definitely applies to genealogy.

“Say what?” you say.

Well, bear with your “Roots & Branches” columnist.

When we try to track down documents about our ancestors, we’re not usually that concerned about obtaining a specific record just for the glory of checking off a box that you now have that record. What we’re really concerned about is what information that record contains—will it connect generations, name previously unknown relatives, tell us where they lived, etc.?

Which is why I think it’s important to know about as many “iterations” of specific record groups as possible.

On multimedia diva Shamele Jordon’s “Genealogy Quick Start” TV show, in which Michael John Neill and I give us give some closely targeted step-by-step instructions on various aspects of genealogy, we recently tackled civil marriage documents, which only start with marriage licenses and include more esoteric evidences about marriages such as bonds and consents.

Naturalizations are a particularly complex record group. When I talking or emailing with someone and the subject comes up and they tell “Oh, I’m already finished looking for them,” I know I have some education to perform.

That’s because there are virtually always more searches to be done if you don’t strike gold immediately (and, truthfully, even if you do—just to see a different perspective).

First and foremost, for most Americans in most time periods, naturalization was a two-step process, with a declaration of intent (nicknamed “first papers”) followed by a petition for naturalization (nicknamed “final papers”) so if you’ve only found one document … there’s just about always a second, and the information on them is rarely identical.

Secondly, until the process was federalized in the early 1900s, the great majority of naturalizations took place in state and local courts. There were many times, especially in larger areas, in which several local courts all were producing new citizens. You neglect any of those records at your peril!

Glancing references to citizenship status appear in several of the 20^th century U.S. Census enumerations and can be used to better pinpoint a time period in which to look for documents (though, as with any census information, it may be inaccurate).

And what about so-called “burned counties” in which courthouse records have been lost to natural disasters (most likely but not limited to fires)? Well, naturalizations were news items and therefore might appear in newspaper articles.

Additionally, even if such records are not extant in government files, many immigrants retained copies of their naturalization papers as a keepsake and token of the completion of their quest for citizenship.

The moral to the story: Don’t just check off a box when obtaining an ancestor’s record … think about what other documents may exist to complement or supplement the information.