In 1917, my maternal grandfather, Kostanty Niedzialkowski, filed his Declaration of Intention to become a citizen of the United States.<\/p>\n
The\u00c2\u00a0Declaration of Intention was the first document an alien\u00c2\u00a0had to\u00c2\u00a0file in order to become a citizen .\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0For that reason, the Declaration of Intention is sometimes referred to as “First Papers”, and it states that the signer renounces forever his or her allegiance to any foreign power and that he or she intends to become a citizen of permanently reside in the United States of America.<\/p>\n
At the time Kostanty arrived, and at the time he filed his first papers, the following regulations were in effect:<\/p>\n
Konstanty filed his Declaration of Intention in the Superior Court of Massachusetts .\u00a0 Three copies of the Declaration of Intention were prepared .\u00a0 The Original was filed with the naturalization court records, the duplicate was filed with the INS Naturalization Certificate Files (C Files)<\/a>, and the triplicate was provided to the applicant .\u00a0 I have copies of the original copy and the triplicate copy of the Declaration of Intention for Kostanty .\u00a0 I obtained the original copy of Kostanty’s Declaration of Intention from the microfilm records at the Family History Library, and I obtained the triplicate copy from my cousin Susan, who has access to some of my grandfather’s original papers .\u00a0 I can obtain the duplicate copy as part of the Certificate File\u00c2\u00a0from the\u00c2\u00a0U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services\u00c2\u00a0under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n The information Kostanty provided in his declaration included:<\/p>\n Information of immigration and naturalization can also be found in U.S. Federal Census Records .\u00a0 The\u00c2\u00a01890 United States Federal Census was the first census to ask about the naturalization status of the respondents .\u00a0 If\u00c2\u00a0an individual was born in the United States, no entry was made .\u00a0 If the individual was an alien, the letters “AL” were entered .\u00a0 If the person had filed\u00c2\u00a0a Declaration of Intention, the letters “PA” (papers) were entered .\u00a0 Finally, if the person had completed the naturalization process, the letters “NA” were entered .\u00a0 The 1890 Federal Census was mostly destroyed by fire, but the 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 Federal Census records\u00c2\u00a0all provide information about the naturalization status of an immigrant.<\/p>\n Tomorrow:\u00a0 Konstanty obtains a Certificate of Arrival and files a second Declaration of Intention<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2006 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1917, my maternal grandfather, Kostanty Niedzialkowski, filed his Declaration of Intention to become a citizen of the United States. The\u00c2\u00a0Declaration of Intention was the first document an alien\u00c2\u00a0had to\u00c2\u00a0file in order to become a citizen .\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0For that reason, the … Continue reading \n