2024 April President’s letter
This is an election year and as a United States citizen, this is one of the rights bestowed upon us to democratically elect our government representatives. Many aspects of our genealogy research touches on the right to vote.
When you discover who were your immigrant ancestors, one of the stories you want to know is if your ancestor became a naturalized citizen and therefore was eligible to vote. There are many records available to research to determine the answer. One example of those available records is the census. There are notations in the census records of certain years.
1820-Foreigners not naturalized
1830 - Aliens, Foreigners not naturalized
1870- Column 19 - Male citizens of U.S. 21 years of age and upwards and Column 20 - Male citizens of U.S. 21 years of age and upwards where right to vote is denied on other grounds than rebelling or other crime
1900- Column 18 - Naturalization
1910 -Column 16 - Whether naturalized or alien
1920 -Column 14 - Naturalized or alien, Column 15 - If naturalized, year of naturalization
1930 -Column 23 - Naturalized or alien
If your ancestor naturalized, then you may be able to find the documents that the government produced. Those documents may include valuable genealogical information such as date of birth, a physical description, the place of birth, the name of the ship they traveled on, from where and when they arrived, and so on.
The Declaration of Intention and State and county boundary changes are also important to our research, so we know where to look for records of our ancestors. Why were boundaries changing? In many cases, the reason for boundary changes were related to elections. As populations grew in an area, the potential for additional representatives of local, county, state, or federal electors could change.
Take advantage of one of your benefits of being a US citizen and be sure you are registered to vote in the upcoming elections. Citizens voting rights are what gives us the power to elect our governing representatives. Our founding fathers were visionaries. Perhaps you had an ancestor that served his/her country by serving in a government position?
Years from now, when your descendants are researching you, there may be documents available that can be used to show you in a particular place and time.
Katie Gertz
