Oct 292011

Today I received information on the naturalization of my mom's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, Samuel Wilson. I had found his gravemarker on findagrave.com recently. That gave me his birthdate so I could search for his naturalization records, hoping they might reveal something about his parents and his birthplace in Ireland.

This is the first step in genealogical search through Homeland Security (www.uscis.gov/genealogy). You first do an Index Search, which gives you this minimal information. Then you use the case number and file number to get a copy of the actual naturalization documentation.

One thing that's interesting from this is that I now have a different birth date. On his grave marker, it gives 30 Aug 1874. This gives 30 Aug 1871. Given that this was filled out by him, I imagine this has a higher probability of being the correct birth date. I'll give 1871 a try before checking out 1874. I'll also ping Ireland again. I had originally given them 1874 and they returned no match. Maybe they'll have better luck with 1871.

my great-grandfather, Samuel Wilson, naturalization information