Articles with American Records

Societies and Immigrants

Societies and Immigrants

  By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student I am a member of a fraternity. No, seriously.  While it may not be as impressive as some of the fraternal orders our ancestors were a part of I am super proud to be a member of a professional fraternity. Best part, these types of organizations keep records. Which is what the last module of the course US Immigration and Naturalization Records taught us. Module 6 was on the subject of ethnic sources, societies, and newspapers. Once again, I felt left out since it didn’t directly affect my personal story, but the information was very enthralling. I honestly had no idea about many of the sources discussed or the groups that were active in  different ethnic communities. In the future I am sure this information will help me with research into other people’s lineages. The majority of the chapter was about societies. I liked that our instructor broke them up by the type of society. The sections were: fraternal, ethnic, and charitable. While many people belong to several different types of societies, I thought it was important to note that there was not a standard way they all functioned. Each was formed for a different reason, with a different mission statement, and different entry rules. That being said I did not know so many of them kept such extensive records. The one I knew kept great records was the Free Masons. I have ancestors who were Free Masons and have worked on locating those records.…

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Passports and the Immigrant

By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student Ok, I am chugging right along through the US Immigration and Naturalization Records course and modules 3 and 4 were very cool.  Module 4 was a lot of new material for me, particularly since I have not spent a lot of time learning about Canadian border crossings. No one in my family (that I have found) ever came through Canada. My husband however is a different story. His great-grandparents nearly starved to death (according to his mother) trying to farm in Alberta from 1920-1922 before going on to Washington state to settle. While that was very interesting I was fascinated to read about the US passport regulations.  Nowadays we take it for granted that if you want to leave the country you need to get a passport.  It is a very simple process, and they are handy forms of government identification.  I did not realize  that this was not the law until 1941. Personally, I think passport applications are an underused resource for genealogists and should be used a heck of a lot more. Especially if you know your ancestor traveled a lot, either for fun or for business.  I learned this last year when I helped a friend start her genealogy journey.  Her great-grandfather traveled back and forth to Central America for work and the information on his application actually broke down a huge brick wall on where her family came from. She learned that his father was born in Scotland and what his name…

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Immigrant Origins

  By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student Oh Module 2, you are my savior! Yes, in this module we delved into strategies for locating those pesky immigrant ancestor’s origins. Now, did it personally help me? No, not yet. I do hold out hope though that this module laid the groundwork for successful future research. Frequently, it may be said that  these courses pack a lot of information into a short amount of pages. I felt it was particularly helpful that this module was broken into 3 sections: Only the country of origin is known Only the county, district, or region of origin in known Specific place of origin  is known Seeing as all of my family fall into section 1, I studied the other sections for that day when I have a break through! In each section the instructor walked us through how to work with the information we have. He talked about clues we could use to find more information. Also listing many resources to research to determine if there are any hidden gems out there. There is even discussion on using foreign record sets when applicable. Unfortunately, you have to know the place name for your ancestor before that is a viable option in most cases. In section 2 PERSI was brought up.  PERSI, or the Periodical Source Index, is a great tool and I was excited to see it brought up in this course.  If you have never heard of PERSI, the  Family Search wiki has a great entry on…

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Starting US Immigration and Naturalization Records

By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student If you live in the United States it is a good chance that you or your family came here from somewhere else. People from all over the world have immigrated to the United States in its 239 year existence making us truly a nation of immigrants. However, for genealogists, learning about those brave souls who traveled here, many times under desperate circumstances, can be the bane of our existence. Why, oh why, couldn’t they just once put down the town they came from! The course I am taking now  is United States: Immigration and Naturalization Records, which hopefully will help me locate my elusive immigrant ancestry along the way. Or at least I can hope, right? Looking through the syllabus there appears to be a lot of great information covered. A weakness for me is immigration after 1870. The reason? Well, that is when the last of my and my husband’s ancestors came to the US. Due to that fact I have not invested a lot of time in learning about 20th and 21st century immigration and naturalization.  It will take all I have to pay extra attention in those instances but the knowledge will help me I am sure. While the course seems to be centered on those of European descent I am hopefull that the section which covers the US laws will still be of interest to others. I mean, everyone who wants to immigrate goes through the same process no matter if they…

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Finishing Up US: Probate Records

By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student I have to say I had a lot of fun digging through the online probate resources for my family members after completing the US: Probate Records course.  I limited my afternoon search to online repositories since research into probate records for my family would take a plane ride or many long hours in a vehicle. With that being said, I think I hit the jackpot in a couple places. If you are in the same predicament that I am where your ancestors lived in different states, don’t forget that you can find books online. First place I always try is Google Books. They have quite a few older research books on there that you can read and download. Next I try WorldCat  because I might get lucky and see that a nearby library has the books I am looking for, or maybe they will inter-library loan it to me. Of course, don’t forget the Internet Archive for those out-of-print genealogy books.  I have found so many great resources on these pages and I know you will too! Since the majority of my family have lived in Indiana I decided to start there. Lucky for me, the books that are quoted as references to this section are now online at Ancestry.com. In fact, as I wrote this blog, Ancestry.com released their new probate collection. So, yeah, I went there and hit the jackpot.  Right now I am at a 25% success rate on searches for my Indiana ancestors…

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