There are many, if not most Americans here today, whose family members were immigrants at one point and were naturalized citizens, so tracing the roots of the family isn’t always as straightforward as we might wish it could be.

Finding the date of naturalization isn’t all that difficult if you know where, and how to accomplish it. Finding the date of naturalization can usually be accomplished on one of several documents, but you do need some minimal information to find them.

Each of the documents listed below will offer you a bit of help in what you need to use that document to find the naturalization date or recording. If you don’t have that minimal information there are a few other ways to accomplish the task, although it will be a little more time consuming.

The Naturalization record:
To use this record you do of course have to know the full name of the person who was naturalized, a date of birth, or one that is close to the date of birth, and possibly the town that they resided in when they were naturalized as a citizen. The courthouse in that town will also be helpful.

When you begin checking for naturalization always check every location that your ancestor is known to have lived during his lifetime.

Another tip will be that family albums, older photos and so on will give clues, since it was a big deal in the life of an immmigrant and some record of a celebration or something of that nature will have gone on.

The process of naturalizing an immigrant took several years to accomplish, and several papers needed to be filed. Among those papers were Intent papers, Papers of Residency requirements and Final papers of naturalization so in some cases you’re going to find that the papers aren’t all filed at the same place that your ancestor was living when he or she became a citizen.

US Census:
In 1900 (although not before this) the census records began to reflect if a person was a citizen by birth or naturalization. To find that you have to know the name of course, but it will also be helpful if you know their state, and the county in which they lived when the census was taken.

Application for Passport:
If your ancestor applied for a passport at any time during his or her life, you can find the record of naturalization on that application. To use this record you’re going to need to know when they filed the passport application and their full name.

Tags:  naturalization naturalization record