Immigrant Ancestor

5-step process for tracing and finding your immigrant ancestor’s for ancestry research.

Historical individual and family research is a process, a methodology, for finding all you can about their lives. Many tools are records available, but knowing what to use and when makes the most significant difference.

Immigrant Ancestor Country of Origin
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Immigrant Ancestor Country of Origin

As a writer and researcher, I have experienced the frustration of writing a story and not gathering enough information in my case, Johannes Schreiber, from the late 1700s. I sought to learn their connection to a country before immigration to develop a story and understand the period as it might have related to Johannes. As I have consulted with other historical family researchers, I have been in awe at length have gone to find his roots, but to no avail.

I have searched online, collaborated through the message boards, and traveled to his beginnings in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia. I have found and developed an extensive paper trail of the family and did find essential clues. But I did not come close enough to where I felt ready to jump my search over the sea to my suspect homeland.

After some thought, I decided to step away from my search and learn all I could about finding the country of origin for an individual/family. I researched

  • Methodologies, what others have done and suggested for searching for the homeland.
  • Records/artifacts can reveal important clues that pinpoint or narrow the scope of one’s search.
  • Understanding immigration/migration patterns of one’s ethnic heritage at a time and place can yield rich insight not found in a document.

My search took me through hundreds of internet sites, books, and oral discussions. I was overwhelmed by the massive amount of material that exists. I understood how documents, immigration patterns, and research methodology would combine to find individuals when I finished. I had clarity of how to re-evaluate what I had, see the gaps and opportunities for further research, and renewed hope that I would find the answers.

The design of this article is to share a five-step process helping to find the immigrant ancestor origins through immigration records.

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Step 1: Identify Vital Information to Know the Individual

What do you know about the individual? Gather and review all the documents you have relating to the individual/family. I like to develop a spreadsheet that allows me to record each piece of information by date. The following are a few questions to get you started on reviewing the information you currently have:

What is the full name of the individual? Was the name changed when they came to America? If yes, identify what the name was before it was changed.

  • Name of individual
  • Name changes—both given and surnames

What are the names of immediate family?

  • Names of the parents and their birthplaces
  • Names of siblings
  • Name of spouse(s)
  • Names of children
  • Familiar names were given to family members

Identify the name of friends and relatives that are associated with the individual in America and the country of origin. It is a great help in making sure you have found the individual when you find them together with these associated people in the country from which they immigrated.

  • Names of family and friends with whom they associated.

Identify an event associated with the person (such as birth, christening, or marriage) in the country of origin. List the date, month, and year—be as specific as possible. I have found that many individuals may have the same name, especially in Scandinavian research, and the only way to tell them apart is by the event date.

  • Birthdate and locality

What was the country of origin? Do you have the name of a village, town, or county? This can be the most challenging piece of information to secure.

  • Localities lived in
  • Geographical clues
  • Historical clues

Was the individual/family the first one to come to America? I had found cases when the person was a family member who came to America.
What other information do you have?

  • Documents in your possession
  • Information about culture and religion
  • A time period of immigration
  • Family stories and traditions
  • Family heirlooms

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Step 2: Start a Profile and Timeline for the Individual

Take the information you know and begin a written profile and timeline. Use an existing form or create one of your own to help track known information and what you find. Make sure you also document where you find the information you record because the need will always arise to review at least one of your data points to confirm or search deeper for information.

I believe you should record any information you learn about the individual, no matter how insignificant you consider it. Not only will it help in your search, but once you find the person, it will also help in writing family histories. The following are the types of information you should be looking for and recording:

  • Name of individual
  • Name changes—both given names and surnames
  • Names of parents and their birthplaces
  • Names of siblings
  • Name of spouse(s)
  • Names of children
  • Familiar names were given to family members
  • Names of family and friends with whom they associated
  • Birthdate and locality
  • Localities lived in
  • Geographical clues
  • Historical clues
  • Documents in your possession
  • Information about culture and religion
  • Time of immigration
  • Family stories and traditions
  • Family heirlooms

At this point, you should be able to see some trends in a person’s life. The types of documents you can find depend upon where and in what time frame they lived.

Double-check that you’ve reviewed every document you have for the individual/family. This includes letters, diaries, and photographs in your files and possession of others. Remember, a person’s life is recreated one event at a time.

Now that your information is written down, develop a timeline starting from their death to their birth (reverse chronological order).

  • What do you see?
  • Are any trends apparent?
  • What don’t you see?
  • What gaps do you see in the information?

Write down all the questions you still need and want to answer. No question is too small or “off-limits.”

Don’t forget to include items such as histories, sketches, photographs, letters, and diaries as part of your search. Documents can be online, in libraries, or another person’s file.

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Step 3: Start A Document and Record Your Search in America

Once you are reasonably certain about which individual or family you will search for, begin in America to find records that will provide and confirm important information about the individual and help lead you to look for records from the individual’s country of origin.

Based on the time period in which the individual lived, outline some of the documents that might exist for the person and where they might be located. This will help fill in the gaps in your timeline and answer your questions.

Start with the paper trail you already have started to create. You won’t be looking for a birth certificate if the individual’s life predates civil registration. Start with the basics—birth, marriage, and death records; church documents; indentures; land records; court records; and, of course, immigration materials.

Try to find at least two records, more if possible, for the person to help confirm and corroborate the information provided. Throughout your search, you will be exposed to resources that range from oral discussions to information that you find in print, online, and on other types of media (such as C.D.s, tapes, or microfilm). It is essential always to ask questions such as the following:

  • What is fact? What is suspicious?
  • Did I search for the entire family?
  • Did I search a broad time period in this record?
  • Did I search a wide enough geographical area?
  • Did I search this record covers every location they lived in that?
  • Did I search for variant spellings of names in this record?
  • Did I search for and record neighbors, family, and friends found in this record?
  • Did I search for and use indexes?
  • Do I understand this resource or record’s intention, what it offers, how it’s put together, and its limitation?

As you gather and review information, continue to add it to your profile and timeline. Keep a detailed log of where you have been and what sources you have used.

As you continue the search, you will check off questions that have been answered and add new questions to research based on your findings. Keeping this list up-to-date is vital to keeping your research focused and helping to shed light at times when you need inspiration.

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Step 4: Review and Learn about Immigration Patterns

One of the essential factors in finding an individual in immigration research. Look at immigration from a historian’s point of view.

Suppose you are only focused on trying to documents, such as deeds, wills, bible records, and other such documents. For example, in the case of a deed, you will identify to whom the individual sold his property, but it does not tell why he moved from Virginia to Tennessee.

As a historian, you’re trying to understand what a person did and why. You seek to understand the immigration patterns of the time and people. Your chances for success expand dramatically because you begin to understand what your family was thinking— you see what other individuals were doing, where they were going, and where they came from.

By learning about the immigration patterns for the specific ethnic group the person belonged to in the time period they lived, you begin to see trends that correlate to your family, such as the ports they arrived at, the counties and cities from which they came and where they settled, the reasons for decisions that were made, the types of records they left behind, and where those records might be located.

Start by answering the following questions:

  • What was their ethnic background or group? Were they Puritans? Welsh? Germans?
  • Why did they come?
  • When did they come?
  • Where did they settle?
  • What were their social and work conditions?
  • What was their religious background?
  • Are there any clues to family naming patterns?

A few words about maps. Maps help us trace the migration paths the person took. More detailed maps will show what routes were available at the time, including railroads, waterways, early roads, and so forth. It is essential to trace the individual’s path because there may have been records created along the way.

The naturalization process may have been started at the port of entry, and the records may be scattered through stops along the route to the final destination. Ethnic and religious groups often travel together, and your persons’ travels can be traced by tracking others in their group. Also, on the long journey west in the United States, babies were born, people married, and people died. There may have been records of events created along the way.

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Step 5: Are You Ready to Track the Person to Country of Origin

Before you rush off to research the individual country of origin, review your data. At this point, you should be able to

  • Confirmed the country of origin.
  • Put the individual in a historical and social context
  • Have researched records and developed a timeline for life in the new world.
  • Had assigned a period when the individual entered the country
  • Perhaps place the individual in a region, county, or city where they lived

If you can provide the above information, you’re ready to start your search in the country of origin. Now it’s time to learn about your resources and continue your search.

If you don’t have what is needed, identify gaps in your information and retrace your steps to see if you missed any important clues. Often it only takes one clue to get the break you need.

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Other Resources to Help Trace Immigrant Ancestors

Are you developing a family history for an individual or family? Are you trying to find their immigrant origins? Start by seeing the articles

The following videos can help you get a head start in understanding immigration cand country of origin ancestor research.

 

How to Find the Origin of Immigrants Coming to America
An introduction to immigration and migration historical research. You will be introduced to a five-step methodology to find the immigrant origins when conducting individual and family history research.

Addition videos include:

The following are records I have found extremely helpful and full of clues to finding an individual’s birthplace and immigrant origins. It is designed to provide a quick reference and direction of finding and searching for records as probable places to find information. You can use these records to develop an immigrant paper trail to assist you in finding and tracing an individual immigrant’s origins. Check out these articles:

Records for Tracing Immigrant Ancestors
Cemetery Records Census Records Church Records 
Colonial Town Records Historical and Genealogical Societies Histories and Biographies
Land Grant Records Maps and Gazetteers Naturalization Record
Obituaries Passport Applications Ship Passenger Lists
Social Security Applications Social Security Death Index

Check out the following country profiles to learn more about their immigration and migration in America.

Immigration and Migration in America
Czechs and Slovaks Danish Dutch
English Finnish French
German Greek Hungarian
Icelandic Irish Italian
Norwegian Polish Russian
Scandinavian Scottish Swedish
Welch United States Western Migration

Articles include:

Learn more about immigrant records at “Immigrant Records at the National Archives.”

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