Quite frankly the Naturalization Court Document rarely contains any more
information than that recorded on the index card in the Soundex Index.
There is a relatively standard index card used which has blanks for the
following entries: Family Name, Given Name, Title and Location of Court,
Date of Naturalization, Volume or Bundle Number, Page Number, Copy of Record
Number, Address of Naturalized Person, Occupation, Birth Date or Age, Former
Nationality, Port of Arrival in the US, Date of Arrival, Names /Addresses
/Occupations of Witnesses to Naturalization. However index cards for
earlier naturalizations (around 1860 in my experience) leave a lot of the
really interesting entries blank (the info just doesn't appear in the Court
Document.)
You will get a sample of the persons signature (which may be an 'X') and
that of the witness.
You _may_ get a _copy_ of the person's Declaration of Intention. This will
show the date he filed it and establishes his presence in NY City at that
time. You can then look up the original D of I and get another sample of his
signature.
There will usually be no information on wife or minor children as these
persons will derive their citizenship from the husband/father. Older
children will have their own individual naturalizations. I have however
seen at least one married woman who was specifically naturalized (in 1852)
but could never figure out why. (Women acquired the citizenship status
of their husband up until about 1922 as I recall, and it worked both ways;
a native born woman became an alien if she married one.)
Regards,
Charles Sullivan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reminders about the GEN-NYS-L mailing list:
GEN-NYS-L Web Page (including archived messages)
http://www.mv.com/ipusers/wildcat/gen-nys-l.html
This mailing list is only processed twice a day, so postings and
subscription requests may be delayed about 24 hours.
Everyone on the list: gen-nys-l@wildcat.mv.com
Remove yourself from the list: majordomo@wildcat.mv.com,
message: unsubscribe gen-nys-l
Human who runs the list: gen-nys-l-owner@wildcat.mv.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------