CITIZENSHIP : UNITED STATES OF AMERICA : RESEARCHING DEPORTATION RECORDS? : U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES #2 (LOTS OF GOOD STUFF!)

USCIS : FEE BASED DEPORTATION SERVICE 

Yes you do have to pay a fee for their research but there are exemptions.

There is way more here at the USCIS than DEPORTATION:

WHY MIGHT REQUESTING THE FILES FOR YOUR ANCESTORS TURN OUT TO HAVE MORE THAN ANY DATABASE? (My question.)

Excerpt:

The question is important because it speaks to the most common misconception about USCIS historical records, namely that USCIS C-files are exact duplicates of court records. Yet C-Files are not exact duplicates of court records for three reasons:

1. Technically, the duplication is not exact because C-Files contain a copy of the naturalization certificate issued to the new citizen in addition to duplicate court forms. That said, if the C-File contains only a certificate, petition for naturalization, and declaration of intention, researchers might consider that C-File as little more than a duplicate of court records available from the National Archives (NARA) or from a courthouse.

2. Not all C-Files are small. Millions of C-Files contain a variety of additional forms and documents generated before or after the naturalization date. To see some examples visit the C-Files Image Gallery. Please go to this link as it lists a number of 

documents that might be especially interesting, some I personally had not encountered.

3. Many C-Files relate to citizenship, not naturalization, and so contain no court records at all. For example, minor children listed on a father’s petition could later apply for their own certificate of citizenship, creating a derivative C-File. Read more about Naturalization Records Not Duplicated in Court Records, or review our table of Certificate Series showing the series-specific numbering.It could be terrific to have a copy of the ancestors actual CERTIFICATE, which might have a photo of them.

Give this site some attention.  There is a lot to learn! 

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JEWISH ASHKENAZIM GENEALOGY : NAME CHANGES and OTHER UNIQUE CHALLENGES

Jews have come to America since Colonial Times but in general most of those from Europe came during the Industrial Revolution from Central and Eastern Europe, that Great Immigration period from about 1880 - 1920.  So for American Jews, the genealogy research starts with American records as it would for any other American.

Because of intermarriage between Jews and Christians there are Americans today who might not identify as Jewish or who acknowledge a Jewish ancestor - with many rumors of Jewishness as well - who do Holocaust Genealogy.

There are some special considerations in Jewish genealogy that make it a bit more difficult and that is dealing with Hebrew alphabet and translation, Yiddish language,  naming conventions, and informal name changes.

I've stated it elsewhere on this blog but that officials at Ellis Island changed the names of immigrants coming through is a myth. They had no authority to do that and were also dealing with hundreds of incoming every time a steamship came into the port in New York. It's likely that sometimes an immigrant's name was written down phonetically but that's not the same as an authority changing a person's name.

However Jewish immigrants DID sometimes change their names, sometimes to a German version from a Polish or Russian one - since German Jews had an easier time of assimilation, sometimes to an English or American name, sometimes to make the name easier to spell or pronounce. These name changes were rarely done formally and legally.  In many cases people were known by their Hebrew or Polish or other ethnic surname as well as their new name.

My suggestion is to do the usual genealogy research and perhaps on a marriage or a draft registration or other document the name change will be revealed.  Find the marriage record kept at the temple, not just the civil one. Have tombstones translated and get the cemetery record as well as the death record. Remember that if something comes right up on a database that's a blessing but books, microfilms, newspapers, and writing to archives may still be necessary. 

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HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES #5 THOSE ETHNIC SURNAMES and LANGUAGE CHANGES

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES  #5 THOSE ETHNIC SURNAMES and LANGUAGE CHANGES

Sometimes when you're trying to figure out a surname, maybe it's not coming up on a database at all, you think "something is wrong here."  There is so much on the internet it is indeed rare that a surname isn't going to bring up something. 

Sometimes looking at ethnic surname lists put up by a genealogy society or study group will help.

There are very many surname lists on the Internet, many of them focus on the most common surnames, which isn't helpful if the surname is uncommon.  

Some surnames have changed or been changed and some disappeared as the lineage died out.  

As previously stated, we want to find the meaning of the name in case the person moved countries and changed the spelling of their name due to encountering a new language.  Let's give a simple example, Smith.  Smith could become Smied = the German version.  Smid in Dutch. Forgoron in French. Kovacs in Hungarian. ... (Early Scottish explorers to California during land grant days, who married women of Mexican or Spanish descent on rancheros given by the King of Spain, Spanish-ified their surnames.)

But another example of surname change is when someone adapts the spelling to the new language - English - so that native speakers won't always mispronounce it or stumble over it.  These changes are not always clear and sometimes a name was Germanized or Anglicized in unexpected ways or another person, such as a census taker, wrote the name down the way it sounded to them.  One name that I found good documentation had been changed went from Polish in Russia to German in America.  The original surname had a first syllable Spi. It got turned into Spiegel.  Often thought to be a Jewish name, Spiegel means mirror.  I've also seen it explained to mean spyglass or eyeglass - it has something to do with seeing. The people who changed their name to Spiegel were Roman Catholics.

Using a Google translator may solve the mystery of a surname. Play with the translator with various suggestions, such as German, Polish, Slovak, and see if a meaning ever comes up.  Will it be a trade guild name, an honorific, or reflect the name of a place?

When you go into documents in the 1800's and back, you may notice that the same surname sometimes has one (s) in one version and two (ss), in another. You may notice that f's are used in the place of s's.

Example:  Andrassy.  Andraffy.  Dessewffy.  Deffewffy or Dessewssy.  (Hungarian nobility.)

Y's and J's can also be interchanged... Janko - Yanko (Slovak)

W's and V's interchanged.  Wager.  Vagner.  (Germanic or Polish)

G to J - Gyula - Julius (Hungarian)

Or let's take the evolution of a famous person's name, artist Andy Warhol.  The surname is found in Ruthenian based records in Slovakia and Poland as Warchola.  Varchola.  Warchol.  Varchol. and, finally, his version, Warhol.

Likewise, you may see a name and then it says something that translates to alias, aka, or "from the house of."  What is going on here is that the family's surname has changed because:

1) They just felt like it.  Perhaps to honor a relative or to take on more luster than the earlier name. A person who moved a great distance to where no one knows him or her could do this easily.  (Many a French courtesan during the Paris Belle Epoch days changed her name to indicate a noble past she never had.)

2) The male line died out and to continue it some agreement was made that the female line would continue the name.  (Check out the ancestry of Prince Albert II of Monaco and the family's history of dealings to continue the Grimaldi name.)

3) The name was changed due to an elevation in status by a King or other prominent person, perhaps because of excellent military service.

4) A clan of people, perhaps founders of a nation or early incoming tribes, evolved a number of surnames that over time were used by those descending from the tribe. The name evolves over generations.

5) Someone who long ago had a distinguishing feature such as red hair, thus being called something like Johnny the Red, goes for the surname Carmine or Veres. 

6) An illegitimate child goes by the surname of its mother, until the genetic father or the man who later married that woman informally or formally adopts it.  (Sometimes because people remarried quickly, a woman pregnant by a husband who died remarried and the child carried the name of the father whose house he or she was birthed in.) Or the child remains illegitimate (a legal term - in 19th century it means the child does not have right to inheritance from the father) but is recognized by the birth father and assumes or is given the right to the name. Or the child remains illegitimate, but the mother uses the father's surname anyway.

Surnames are fascinating!

This post is one of a series on the subject.  Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to the posts.

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HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES #1 PRO GENEALOGY TIPS FROM ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES  #1  PRO GENEALOGY TIPS FROM ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

Have you ever been blocked in your research because you just can't seem to find the person by the SURNAME you have for them in databases?

Transcription and Indexing projects can be helpful but when the original handwriting is bad or the pages are faded or water damaged or the indexer did not have a clue about the ethnic surnames of the heritage/country/language they are working with, it's frustrating. The indexer was well meaning but it can mean hours of confusion for you. There you are, trying to figure out if that letter is an l or if the giant G you see is actually a J, or a T is an F. Frustration that might not be so acute if you were spinning microfilm. 

I say this because I've tried to recreate years of personal research on some of the most popular databases and I can tell you that NO, I would NOT find what I did using microfilm coming up on these databases.  (And in one case the clue I needed wasn't even on a microfilm but on the BACK OF A PAPER INDEX CARD! - which no one noticed when they were microfilming.)

That is why we always want to go to the original source material and see for ourselves what the index or database has taken us to. (And why I fear the destruction of source material.)

An indexer had the chance to properly translate a surname.

You have the chance.

You can use the Internet to your advantage.

I'm sure you've had the experience here on Google of searching for a topic but forgetting how to spell the word or words. The suggestion Google's intelligent search engine came up with makes all the difference because it spelled it correctly for you.  IT OFTEN CAN DO THE SAME WITH A SURNAME.

(I'm also sure at least some of you have had the hideous experience of automatic word corrections doing serious damage to your message - your text.  (I know my defunct cell phone did that and I started to hate texting because of all the wasted time fixing the words to what I had originally intended; sometimes the message still somehow went out wrong.)

This post is NOT to tell you that you should sit there and loose hours of your life, feeling ready to tear your hair out, trying to figure out what an indexer did not, though trying those T's that are J's and C's that are G's does sometimes make all the difference.

So here is my first tip...

USE AN ON-LINE LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR first to see if the name as you have is spelled HAS A MEANING. The translators are not always all-encompassing with their libraries of words and meanings, but this is a first step. You may be surprised at some of the meanings. Perhaps your ancestor went through life being known as Mrs. Dumpling.  Or Mr. Bellybutton.

At the same time, consider that some names, such as Baker, have variations that are close to each other in various languages.

If the surname has a suffix and the translator is not bringing up a meaning, but simply restating it as a word, try that surname without the suffix.

Be sensitive to the suffix as a particular language's way of adding words that mean - of, son, daughter, or some other possessive. This may be your clue to the ethnicity and language of the person and a way of confirming that you're looking at the right documents.  Sure, in some parts of the world there was ethnic mixing going on centuries ago and you may find Italians in Hungary or Scots in Poland. The incoming ethnic people may have slightly changed their name to fit into their new culture.

AN EXAMPLE:

In Polish a ski ending infers masculinity or the father, the patriarch side of the family.  Ska ending infers femininity and the mother, the matriarch side of the family. However, the name may though time move into the ski ending.  Ski indicates eastern slav origins and Sky indicates western sav origins.  

Szke is a Hungarian suffix meaning the same. In in some families both were used or you will notice the suffix evolving.

Ski, sky, vich, iew, ow, dotter, all indicate that somewhere along the line, a person took the original root name and added a possessive.  Which means that you may just find the link between the surnames in a sensible way, because you find the name without that suffix.

The name with an ow suffix may mean  "The man from Krak"  i.e. Krakow.

You'll notice that some possessives indicate a relationship with a person and others a relationship with a PLACE.

When it comes to places and times where people did not have to have a surname because everyone knew who was who in their village or the subculture they lived in within the village, there are two ethnic groups I can think of off hand here in which surnames were recent and did not stabilize for some time, and there was no need for legal name changes.

More on that in the next post!

This post is one of a series on the subject.  Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to all the posts.

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WHAT'S IN A NAME CHANGE - WHAT MADES ME MAD - PART THREE

Use the Google Blogger search feature to bring up other posts on name changes, surnames, and part one and two of this tome!)


Besides ethnic pride and the discovery of roots, another reason for name changes, both given and surname, that I've encountered is numerology.  In part one of this post on NAME CHANGES, I mentioned that it seems acceptable to change your name completely to have success in Hollywood.  Well, believe it or not, some of those changes included the possibility that changing one's "numbers" would be good luck.  Numerology is the study of how letters add up as numbers.


I've known people who take numerology seriously when naming their babies, naming a business, or renaming themselves, because they want a happier life.  Imagine if you will growing up with a name that has felt truly impossible.  You're wondering what your parents were thinking when they gave you that name.  If you're really going to start over with a whole new name, why not take everything into consideration, even if it turns out there's nothing to it?


I've known artists and writers who have a career or "brand" name different from what's on their driver's license, and sometimes it's just so they can hide their other self and way of making money from a boss!  (More difficult these days than ever to do.)


To me being able to make enough money and get past being in survival and subsistence and moving forward in your life is a great reason to change your name, and it doesn't imply that you're greedy, materialistic, or a jerk.


There's only one reason a name change is bad and wrong and that's when the intention is to hide criminal activity.


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WHAT'S IN A NAME CHANGE - WHAT MAKES ME MAD - PART TWO

(Continued - part one was posted about a month ago.)


I know of a Celtic /Irish American author who has been defamed by one biographer by adding a second L...


If you are researching a "difficult to pronounce or spell" surname, first, use on online translator that has speech capability or talk to someone of the ethnic heritage (that may mean contacting a Native American tribe or special ethnic research group), and get the SOUND of the name.  Write down what it sounds like to you.  Ask other people to write down what they think they are hearing. 


Use SOUNDEX to bring up names that sound like that.  (Be aware that Soundex (s) aren't perfect.  One is considered to be Germanized.)  Try to imagine what it might be to a German speaker who is a census taker.


Become sensitized through the use of SOUNDEX or database opportunities to bring up names that are close in spelling.  Though so many names are common, in particular names based on professions, that it doesn't imply descendants are from one massive family.  However, you may find that the name has changed through time as people you're related to moved from country to country.


When it comes to snobbery, I've heard many people criticized for have a van, von, or other prefix indicating land ownership, if not also nobility, before their surname.  Some families dropped this when they accepted the democratic ideals of the United States of America, but if your family was using it in the Old Country, then that's your name!  Remember that wealth and elite status then isn't what it is now.  They could have had inherited land but be broke.)


(part three coming!)

WHAT'S IN A NAME CHANGE - WHAT MAKES ME MAD - PART ONE

Over the years, in books I've read especially, I've come across negative commentary by various authors who are finding fault with people's name changes.  Its their way of insinuating negative things about other's personality, character, or psychology, and that makes me mad.  It's most often unfair.  When I come across that kind of criticism in a biography, I wonder how much I should believe that the author wrote.

Many people are not comfortable with the name they were given at birth and many people have felt compelled to change their surname due to the prejudices they've experienced - or just because they feel like it.  Take for instance the children of hippies who were, as a friend's son was, given a long Native American name when they were Jewish!  (He changed his name in college.)

It seems to me that drastic name changes that individuals or their Hollywood studios, managers, or agents, demanded are understood or forgiven as the means to celebrity and career success.  (i.e. Norma Jeanne Baker became Marilyn Monroe.)  But oh if a common person adds a letter, gets rid of the son, ski, sky, szke, or some other suffix, or gives a name a twist or a twirl to do so.  Sometimes this change is to make a name difficult to pronounce in English easier on other people.

I've talked about the Ellis Island name change as a myth at least once on this blog, but I've met a lot of people who claim that is where a drastic name change occurred.  Maybe that's even what their immigrant ancestor claimed, but more than likely, if the name change was drastic, then the person probably decided that to completely start anew they might as well.

Some immigrants came from places were surnames were fairly recent, where family members were not unified in what they wanted the family surname to be, or they had a Jewish name and an American name.  (Their documents from the old country would be more revealing.  Did they get on the boat with the same name they got off with?  Did they apply for citizenship with the name they used on the boat? Did they appear on a census in the Old Country with that name?  What does it say on birth certificates?)

Many ethnic groups had a very hard time getting viable work and income, and found that when they were out of work employers didn't even call them in for interviews - until they changed their names.  This has been true for decades.  In my time one family I know changed their five syllable Italian name, which actually was quite musical to the ear pronounced correctly, to the father's first name (i.e. Robert Roberts) and his whole career changed.  Another family had a German name that sounded like a sex act and their children were being teased on the playground.  Let's just say they changed their surname to Fox, and their pubescent daughter stopped getting harassed.  If a child is being bullied, maybe it's time for a name change.

Other people have discovered their ethnic heritage roots in adulthood and discovered that their surname has been slightly misspelled all along and go back to the original spelling.

(to be continued)


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GILES FRASER ON THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA THAT SPAWNED SURNAME CHANGES in HIS JEWISH FAMILY

THE GUARDIAN - GILES FRASER - HAUNTED BY FAMILY'S PAST  by GILES FRASER

"The Lusitania sinking in all likelihood triggered the process by which the family rabbi became, a century later, the family priest."

EXCERPT:

When the Liverpool-registered ocean liner the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by U-boats on 7 May 1915, the Rev Samuel Friedeberg was serving as a rabbi at the Princes Road synagogue in Liverpool. For days following the sinking, anti-German riots plagued the city. Shop windows were smashed and factories believed to be owned by Germans were attacked. Foreigners were roughed up on the street, often with little discrimination as to their place of origin.

The chief constable of Liverpool contacted the government to request the assistance of the army. A few months later, the Rev Friedeberg changed his surname to Frampton. Other parts of the family followed suit and became Freemans or Frasers. It became a pretty common thing to do. A few years later, Battenberg became Mountbatten.

For my family, the change of name occasioned by the public reaction to the sinking of the Lusitania, 99 years ago this week, was probably the crucial move in 300 years of cultural assimilation – a process by which the family rabbi became, a century later, the family priest. And this feels extremely odd, almost like something of a betrayal. I am Giles Fraser, son of Anthony, son of Harold, son of Louis, son of Mark, son of Moses, son of Jacob, son of Judah, son of David. All English Jews stretching back to the early 18th century.

INFORMAL and LEGAL NAME CHANGES

I once had a potential client that I decided not to work with because of her rigidity! 

Seriously, this woman was a highly educated and successful social worker of Jewish background with a very unusual surname.  My preliminary research based on the town that she said her family was from, but a town she was distanced from by three generations, revealed a cluster of this unusual name - with spelling variations.  SHE REFUSED TO BELIEVE THAT THESE PEOPLE COULD BE RELATED based on the idea that surname spellings never changed.  She was arguementative and I could tell that she would never be able to take the small leap of faith required and that I'd be fighting to prove things to her all the way.

The fact is that surnames have been very changeable through history.

African American slaves who were freed got to choose their own names.  Sometimes siblings all chose different surnames.  Did they do this formally and legally?  NO.  Assuming a name for some time is all it took - to be KNOWN by a name.  Some tried out a name, didn't like it, and went with another.

This is just one example of the flexibility or a surname.

Another ; I've heard the "They Changed Our Name At Ellis ISland"  so many times.  I don't argue it but this is 99% of the time pure bunk. They did process people quickly and we always have the problem of bad handwriting or misinterpretations of a name, but a mispelling or misunderstanding at Ellis DID NOT CHANGE AN IMMIGRANT'S NAME LEGALLY.  They did not have to go with a mispelling.  In the five minutes or so that they were processed, clerks were not changing the family name.  End of that old story.

Many people did decide to AMERICANIZE their surname, sometimes by spelling it different or spelling it more according to how it would be written in English.  Few went with legal proceedings, which cost money, to take off an ending, or ad or subtract a letter.  As a result, I have found so very many documented families with a wide variety of spellings.  In one family the name was slightly different on Ellis, on naturalization, or WWI draft registrations, and on census.  They were the same family though.

As I mentioned on a recent post, there is also the SPANISHIFICATION of certain surnames due to immigration. So, it's not always about ANGLICIZING!