Steve’s Genealogy Blog

Today I saw that no fewer than four genealogy blogs, Chris Dunham’s The Genealogue, Joe Beine’s Genealogy Roots Blog, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, and Randy Seaver’s Genea-Musings mentioned the fact that Ancestry.com has now digitized and indexed all readily available U.S. Passengers Lists from 1820 to 1960.  Moreover, Ancestry’s entire Immigration Collection is FREE until the end of November.
I […]

When Stefania Chmielewska arrived in New York, she was detained, rather than immediately admitted to the United States.  Various notations, such as an “X”, “D”, or “held” between columns 1 and 2, or in the name column on the passenger manifest, indicate that a passenger was detained.  The manifest may also include other notations to indicate […]

In her Naturalization Papers, Great Aunt Stephania couldn’t remember the ship on which she emigrated to the United States, although she stated that she arrived at New York from Bremen on September 16, 1901.  Two ships did arrive at New York from Bremen on September 16, 1901:  the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse and the […]

Great Aunt Stephania became of citizen of the United States on March 2, 1944.  By law, she had to complete the naturalization process between two and seven years after filing her Declaration of Intention.  She had filed her Declaration on November 25, 1940, so she was well within the required window of time.
 
Stephania Meleski’s Petition for Naturalization […]

After finding the Original Copy of Great Aunt Stephania’s Declaration of Intention, I moved from the microfilms labeled Naturalization - Declaration of Intention to the films labeled Naturalization - Petition and Record Book.

After I found the Naturalization Index Card for my Great Aunt Stephania, I looked up her Declaration of Intention on a microfilm that contained images of the Original of the three copies of the Declaration that were prepared.  The Original was retained by the clerk, the Duplicate was forwarded to the Bureau of Immigration and […]

While looking for the Naturalization Index Card for my great aunt Stephania Meleski, I happened to look at the very next card after the Naturalization Index Card and found the following card:
 
Change of Name for Stefania Chmielewski
Click on the link for a PDF copy of the Change of Name card.  I had always thought that […]

While looking for my grandmother, Helen Niedzialkowski, in the Naturalization Index, I thought I’d also look for her sister, Stephanie Meleski.  I found the record on the same roll of microfilm as the record for Helen.

Index Card for the Naturalization of Stephania Meleski
Click on the link for a PDF copy of the Index Card for Stephania.  The […]

My grandmother, Helen Niedzialkowski, became a citizen of the United States on June 12, 1953, forty years after she arrived in the country.  I’m not sure what inspired her to become a citizen after all those years, especially since her husband, Kostanty, became a citizen in 1940.
In July, while I was at the Massachusetts Archives, […]

After coming to a decision about how to define Original Source, Derivative Source, Primary Information, Secondary Information, Exact Image, and Original Record, it’s time to decide how some of the records I’ve collected on my Great Aunt Mary stack up.
Birth and Baptismal Record
Marianna’s Birth and Baptismal Record is an Exact Image of an Original Source.  The […]