Step Twelve : Citizenship of the nuclear immigrant family.
Historical research is in order here because in Pennsylvania some people pledged to become citizens of the state early on, and then the requirements for becoming a citizen changed when it came to how many YEARS an immigrant had to wait. But one thing was certain and that is that when the head of household, a man, became a citizen, his wife and all his children who had not reached adulthood would also become citizens. The United States was looking for hard working and self supporting individuals who were also honorable and decent which means that they were not criminals. It helped to integrate into the community and make some friends and go to church. In this case, since we do not know when the family arrived exactly counting years forward isn't precise and then, of course, just because you had to wait a certain number of years does not mean that they didn't wait longer.
In this search I found something of terrific interest that would lead forward the research. Well sort of; it still would not lead to the goal of finding out where in Germany-Prussia our immigrant family came from. However.... I found the son of the immigrant family had walked in and sworn he had entered Pennsylvania / The United States before the age of 18 and that day he was sworn in.
Again let me remind you to do your historical research. For instance, while Pennsylvania was a British colony, anyone who immigrated from Britain was already a citizen. But not Germans.
The pledge this young man made stated the surname we had been looking for but (AMAZING) that he was going forward with a different surname!
Now, in fact he DID NOT go with a different surname when we find him on census forwards.
But at that moment he must have thought he might want to be perhaps more American. That surname was and is far more common and brings up challenges and possibilities.
But why would he have gotten his citizenship having reached the age of 18 by himself?
Maybe the immigrant parents never got their citizenship. Maybe they were dead!
Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path
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