Tracing Immigrant Origins

Part 1 of 3 Introduction Search Strategies Part 2 of 3 Country of Arrival Search Tactics Record Selection Table Record Types Archives and Libraries Biography Business Records Cemeteries Census Church Records Court Records Emigration Genealogy History Land and Property Military Records Naturalization Newspapers Obituaries Pensions Periodicals Probate Records Societies Vital Records Voting Registers Part 3 of 3 Country of Origin Search Tactics Record Selection Table Record Types Census Church Records Civil Registration Court Records Directories Emigration Genealogy History Land and Property Military Records Names Personal Newspapers Periodicals Population Probate Records Societies Taxation Vital Records For Further Reading

Value. These Wiki pages introduce the principles, search strategies, and record types you can use to identify an immigrant ancestor's original hometown. These principles apply to almost any country. Finding an immigrant ancestor's place of origin is the key to finding earlier generations of the family. It provides access to many family history resources in that home area. Once you know a former place of residence or a birthplace, you may be able to add more generations to your pedigree. Read more of the Introduction . . . Key Immigration Links Hamburg Passenger Lists how to use the lists and indexes Germans from Russia research strategies, and record types Ancestry.com ($) passengers, naturalizations, convicts, passports, border crossings, ship images, crew lists, colonists, and aliens FrancoGen links to early French Canadian immigration sources Featured content Country of Arrival Obituaries. Obituaries are an excellent source of biographical information about immigrants. In addition to names and death dates, you can learn about surviving family members, church affiliations, spouses, parents, occupations, burial places, and hometowns in the old country. Even if a place of origin is not given, an obituary may provide additional research clues, such as the date or ship of immigration or traveling companions. Much of this information cannot be found in other sources. For many immigrants, an obituary is the only “biographical sketch” ever written about them. Did you know? Huguenots (French Protestants) settled Florida in 1564, 43 years before Jamestown. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States. More people have come from Italy and Germany to America than from any other nations. More immigrants arrived at Philadelphia than at New York City prior to 1800. More than 3/4 of American colonists arrived as indentured servants, convicts or slaves. The U.S. National Archives has both Canadian and Mexican border crossing records. Library and Archives Canada has border crossing records of Americans into Canada. Some American colonists had their last wil and testament sent back to England for probate. Up to 90 percent of Irish and Greek immigrants went back home from America. Related Sites American Historical Society of Germans from Russia BLM-GLO Land Patent Index Homestead land applications may give immigration data Castle Garden Immigration Search Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System some military records may give hometown Ellis Island Record Search Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (mostly NYC and Boston) Immigration History Research Center Minnesota Library and Archives Canada immigration searches Stephen P. Morse Castle Garden, Ellis Island +  Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center U.S. National Archives Immigration Records WorldVitalRecords Immigration Records Things you can do In order to make this wiki a better research tool, we need your help! Many tasks need to be done. You can help by: Expand an article or short page Create a new article Categorize articles Add external links to articles Add internal links to articles Other...

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