Clues to help you find Immigrant Ancestors' Records:
You may know your ancestors' surnames, but 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/mexica...
Naturalization Records
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/genealogy/research_topics/immigrati...
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
Archives(a)laguna.nara.gov.
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.m...
Details: Mexican-American Genealogical Research:
Following the Paper Trail to Mexico
Code: S2139
Price: $21.00
SOURCE: John Schmal
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