Tracing Immigrant Ancestors in Your Family

In America, all of our families started somewhere else, unless you are Native American. We can trace our family back through the generations and possibly find when they entered this country, but what about before that? Can you discover what your family was like in another country?

It is not easy to trace immigrant ancestors back to the country of their birth, but it can be done with patience and a bit of legwork. First, utilize all of the information that you can get from sources in the country you live in. Use vital records, family recollections, any documents you can dig up, church records, and stories people tell about events surrounding family members.

Once you have exhausted all of these resources, you can be reasonably assured you will have a surname that can be traced back further. Don't forget to consider alternate spellings of the name in older records as many name spellings changed especially if the family was moving from one country to another. Once you have this critical piece of information, now it's time to dig deeper.

Beginning in the 1820s, the United States decided to keep records of immigrants coming into this country. If your relative arrived in the United States after 1820 but before 1900, their names should be included on passenger lists that ship captains were required to have filled out. The main reason for the lists was to keep track of the number of immigrants flooding the shores of the still newly declared country but it still is a viable record that you can view for possible clues to your families past. These records are now translated and kept in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

The records kept had to be quite thorough. They included information that you would find useful in your search for your family ancestry: name, country of origin, age, destination in the New World, and sex were supposed to be collected. Researchers can use Ellis Island as another resource. The passenger lists created on board the ships were used to verify the immigrants wanting to enter this country.

This information could lead you to the country where the next leg of your research will begin. Before approaching foreign databases, use a database online to see if there was any other information that you couldn't find on your own. Many of these databases could find out the town - not just the country - of origin for your ancestors. Google has other international versions of their search engine so you can search a specific country's records with a familiar search engine.

Have you gone as far as you can in this country with your ancestral search? Use that information to find records of your ancestors in foreign countries and possibly even living relatives you'd have never known about otherwise. Here are some online resources to help you trace your family tree.

1. Online genealogy websites - If you have some information or very little but don't know where to go from there; you can consult with websites that specialize in hunting down family origins. Sites like www.genealogy.com, www.familysearch.org, www.ancestry.com, and www.genealogy.org can help with the search. Some charge a fee for their services. There are also free sites on the Internet to check into: Genealogy.GovGenealogySearch.com and FamilyTrackers.com offer tools to help you translate records and search through thousands of records to find exactly what you are looking for.

2.Government records - Census records can definitely be of use in tracking down your family's history. They are taken every ten years and detail head of household, number of members in a family, and locations where people lived within a city, town, or state. Early records in the mid to late 1800s have issues with categorization, but once you know the system you can figure it out. For those looking for relatives originally from other countries, many immigration records are stored in the National Archives and can be accessed.

3. Online library databases - The Library of Congress and the Family Library in Utah contain thousands of indexed records on family names and other records that can prove useful in a genealogy search. Access to these databases can be purchased on a monthly or yearly basis for the ones that do not offer free access.

4. Foreign websites - Some surnames have a specific country of origin like McCloud or Moscowitz. Using one of the archives for a foreign country can set you on the path of immigrant ancestors before they came to this country.

5. Research information - Sites like www.RootsWeb.com offer informative articles that detail how to get started and what information to check out when researching your family history. Many of us don't know how to turn our accumulated records and jottings into anything coherent so these types of tutorials can be extremely helpful.

6. Hire professionals - You can even hire someone who has more experience with finding out obscure family facts than you do. At a site like ProGenealogists.com you can employ a genealogist to turn your information into a family history you can share with others.

Remember that going to the Internet is faster than driving to the library or calling places on the phone. Use the Internet to quicken your search for vital family information. Most importantly remember that piecing together our past adds meaning and newfound perspective on the way we view our life and all of our past experiences.