Ok that makes more sense. The most recent one was my grandmother in 1909. But that was a mistake. Her mother went to Italy to visit relatives and had difficulty with her pregnancy. She was ordered to stay and was born in Italy. As a baby she had to go through Ellis Island and became a naturalized citizen as a young child.
I voted incorrectly due to the phrasing of the questions. My grandparents were both naturalized citizens. My mother, who was born in Italy and so had no US birth certificate, became a citizen as the minor child of naturalized citizens. Mom didn’t fit either category as worded, so I went with the grandparents one.
With the exception of me and of my grandparents, there’s an immigrant to the US in every generation of my ancestors for the last ten generations. Only in my parents’ generation was that immigration illegal, though the method (just show up) was the same in all cases.
It’s also possible that your grandfather isn’t your blood relative. It’s been known to happen.
During the debates for US Senator from Illinois I n 2016, Tammy Duckworth made mention of of the fact that she could trace her family’s military service back to the Revolutionary War. Mark Kirk, her opponent, made some snarky comment about not knowing that there were Thai soldiers in that war.
Duckworth gracefully let it go, and Kirk later apologized. Because although her mother is Thai, her paternal ancestors did fight in the American Revolution. In fact, I believe Senator Duckworth is a member of the DAR.
I was born in a US Military hospital in France, to two US citizens, one of whom became a citizen just under 2 years before my birth. Which makes second generation immigrant, sort of, or first, depending on how you count it. I’m as American as it gets!
I apparently had Mayflower ancestors, and those believed they didn’t need no stinkin’ papers. But I’m Canadian, so it doesn’t matter anyway.
Yah, it happens, but not in this case. The spit test has matched me with cousins that rule that out.
John Mace nailed it. It’s called ‘wash out’, and it can happen after about 5 generations or so.
But maybe there is (was) African DNA, and Native American was the cover story. Or maybe there never was a NA ancestor, or maybe there was.
There are several ‘tree tops’ that came in a UFO for all I know. Somewhere, sometime, you reach the end of what the records show. Sometimes the records back up a family story, sometimes the records prove the stories wrong, and sometimes there are no records.
Both of my parents were permanent resident aliens. I expect to be deported soon.
On one side of my family, my mother’s grandparents came to the US from Germany, but my father’s side of the family first appear in King’s grant documents from pre-revolutionary Virginia.
Of the ancestors we know anything about, they’re all mid-19th century or before immigrants to the US or Texas.
So no naturalization papers that we are aware of. I guess the only ones that there might be some sort of legal record about would be the pre-statehood Texans, in that I imagine they were granted citizenship en-masse when Texas was admitted to the US.
I finally figured out what the question meant, and I thought of my mom having one grandfather who immigrated from Ireland and was (presumably) naturalized, so I entered great-grandparent in the poll. Then remembered that my dad’s parents immigrated from Sicily, too late to change my answer to grandparent.
:eek: Me too !
My fathers ancestors actually landed in Virginia circa 1620. - there is a LOT of documentation on them. There is actually an ancestry club for that side of the family that I have been intermittently active in.
At one point they gave me a copy of one of the phone book sized “master books” that they had compiled. I still remember, years ago, when I started looking into the family history. I meet a few people on the 1995 internet and after a few basic questions I was told “you are lucky, your family tree has already been extensively researched and documented”.
I don’t have as much info on my Moms German ancestors, I wasn’t that close to that side of the family.
My grandmother immigrated from Spain to Puerto Rico when she was a small child. At least that’s what she said. 23 and Me says it was most likely Albania. The rest of my ancestors were already here when the white folks came or were bought over from west Africa totally against their will.
None have naturalization paperwork, we got here on the Mayflower … if pushed, I could get certified extracts of birth and marriage stuff from assorted state government offices as far back as you needed government paperwork to get married, an as early as birth certificates as a governmental thing happened. I can also get pictures of baptismal and marriage records from assorted churches back to whenever they started in the colonies and are extant.
6 generations on my father’s side, 3 on my mother’s. Not sure I understood the question.
My mom was naturalized in 1973, as her family emigrated from Canada when she was eight. She has her naturalization paperwork (and had to bring it to the Social Security Office, as they somehow didn’t have her citizenship on record!). I even know exactly where it is in her house.
I don’t have naturalization paperwork. I do have a Certificate of Citizenship from Canada, though.
I suppose it depends on who you are “proving” citizenship to, but church records come pretty close to that as aruvqan suggested. I’m sure any court would accept baptismal records, especially if you have those records for the previous generation to the one being questioned.
My maternal grandmother needed a birth certificate to collect Social Security in her own name after my grandfather died(for proof of age, not citizenship). None existed due to a fire circa 1900 that destroyed most public records where she was born. They accepted her baptismal certificate without question.
Yes, but as you said, that was for proof of age, not citizenship. Baptismal records are often accepted for proof of age, as are school records. But it’s generally only baptismal records that contain an age or date of birth and which record a baptism in the first few years of life - my husband was baptized at 30 and his records wouldn’t be accepted as proof of anything other than that he was baptized. And the reason they are accepted as proof of age is because it’s unlikely that someone would be able to significantly lie about the age of a child under 5. Sure, the child could be six months old instead of four months old, or six instead of five - but you aren’t going to be able to add or subtract years from a record created for an under 5 year old.
Citizenship is another story - the fact that a four year old or four month old was baptized in the US doesn’t even tell you where he was born, much less what citizenship he holds. Here’s a list of citizenship documents accepted for passport issuance - if you were born in the US and the state where you were born has no certificate on file, you can submit baptismal and school records along with an affidavit from someone has personal knowledge of the circumstances of your birth , but the records alone are not enough.
With exception of a few individuals who married in, this is true for us as well.