MEX-MICHOACAN-L Archives

From:
Subject: Finding Immigrant Ancestors
Date: 17 Aug 2004 07:37:57 -0600

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Classification: Query

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/BaC.2ACI/796

Message Board Post:

Clues to help you find Immigrant Ancestors' Records:

If you do not know the town from which your ancestors came from in Mexico or other areas, it is not likely that you will progress beyond what you have now. You need to learn the name of the town or municipio from which your ancestors came.

One thing you can try if you have a non-citizen ancestor living in the US during the 1940s (wartime). America wanted to keep track of all the noncitizens during this time so they were registered. The Alien Registration Program in 1940 required that all alien residents of the United States register at their local Post Office. The registrations from July 1940 to April 1944 are on microfilm in INS custody, searchable by name, date of birth, and place of birth. You can write to the address below, saying you are requesting the info "under the Freedom of Information Act" or you can obtain a Form G-639 and fill it out.

If the person is deceased, it might be good to send them a copy of the obituary, Social Security Death index entry or a death certificate. Tell them everything you know, where they lived in the 1940s, possible aliases, etc. This is the address:

INS Freedom of Information
425 I Street, NW
2nd Floor, ULLB
ULLICO Building
Washington, D.C. 20536
Fax: (202) 514-4310

See also:

http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/foia/request.htm

and

http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/foia/ADDRESS.HTM

Between 1903 and 1952, 1.5 million immigrants came across the border at El Paso and their names, ages, birthplaces, and last permanent addresses were recorded. The El Paso office says that the records for the short-term visitors may have been thrown away early on (1910s), but most of the records are available on microfilm at NARA. To find out more information about the National Archives offices and their microfilm holdings for border-crossing and other records, consult these websites:

Mexican Border Crossing Records:

http://www.archives.gov/research_room/genealogy/immigrant_arrivals/mexican_border_crossings.html

Naturalization Records

http://www.archives.gov/research_room/genealogy/research_topics/immigration_and_naturalization.html

Naturalization records after 1907 can offer the researcher a great deal of information about his or her immigrant research. You can Email these facilities to ask them about your immigrant ancestor. If you decide to Email them, it is always good to try and give as much information as possible about the person concerned, birthplace, birth date, when they arrived in America, where they lived, address, and names of family members. Giving approximate dates is better than giving no information at all. Below is the website for NARA (National Archives and Records Administration). This site will give the Email addresses of the various facilities around the country:

http://www.archives.gov/facilities/facilities_by_state.html


The street address of Laguna Niguel is : 24000 Avila Road, Laguna Niguel, Calif. 92677-3497. The mailing address is: Post Office Box 6719, Laguna Niguel, Calif. 92607-6710. And their Email is .

Once you locate a place of origin, you may want to consult the Family History Library (aka Mormon Library) and access their catalog to see if church or civil records are available. They own 154,000 rolls of microfilm for all of Mexico and it is rare when they haven't had a town that I was looking into.

In our book, “Mexican-American Genealogical Index: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico,” Donna Morales and I present the readers with many examples of border-crossing records, alien registration, and naturalization. Available through Heritage Books.

http://marketplacesolutions.net/secure/heritagebooks/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HBI&Product_Code=S2139

Details: Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico
Code: S2139
Price: $21.00

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