Discovering Your Immigrant Ancestors
Immigrant ancestors link us to another country and culture. The founders of our families in America, and in some cases the ancestors from whom we receive our surnames as well, are often our most elusive forebears. And we are very curious about them. We want to know who they were. When and where were they born? Where did they live in the "Old World"? When did they come to America? Whom did they marry? When and where did they die?
In addition to this basic genealogical data, we are eager to discover the circumstances surrounding their immigration. Were they fleeing war or persecution? Were they running from starvation? Did they come as slaves or indentured servants? Were they attracted to the New World by a sense of adventure or the alluring promotions of railroad and land companies offering land and promising instant prosperity?
Whatever motivated them, Europeans, Asians, and Africans came to America in astonishing numbers, beginning with early 17th century Spanish and English settlements in Florida and Virginia and culminating in the massive flood of people from eastern Europe in the decades
around 1900. Altogether some fifty million people (not counting the American Indian) immigrated to America. The peak year, exactly three hundred years after the settlement at Jamestown, was 1907, when the nation accepted 1,285,349 new inhabitants. Our challenge is to identify among this great flood of people the handful or several hundred (of 17th century) individuals and couples who began our own particular family lines.
The search for immigrant ancestors will employ many of the methods and sources that have proved helpful in tracing other generations. Like the native-born American, the immigrant leaves behind a trail of documents through which his personal history can be traced. Also, as is the case with American-born ancestors, parts or all of the trail have sometimes been destroyed. But what is distinctive about the immigrant is that his history begins outside the United States. To discover much about his early life, you may have to learn a foreign language and become familiar with local records in the country where your family originated.
Our immigrant ancestors were often recorded while in transit from the Old World to the New. Information about them was sometimes noted by captains of ships on which they took passage to America and by customs officials as they entered the country. We shall discover, too, that our immigrant forebears are noted in some rather unusual places, such as a published list of indentured servants or a missing persons column in a foreign-language newspaper.
Following the basic method of all genealogical inquiry, you should proceed in the search for your immigrant ancestors from the known to the unknown. Be quite sure that your earliest known ancestor in any given line was indeed an immigrant, not the son, grandson, or great-grandson of an earlier settler. Then, exhaust all family and American sources before consulting foreign records. Unless you have an exact place of origin (county or province, and country), using foreign records can be immensely frustrating.
