Handbooks for Foreign Genealogical Research
A Guide to Published Sources in English, Research Guide No. 23
Compiled by Virginia Steele Wood
Introduction
Research into family history is an
especially popular American pastime and age is no deterrent. Publications
are legion; archival resources are abundant; lectures, conferences,
workshops, and family reunions abound; groups sponsoring genealogical
research trips are active, here and abroad; computer bulletin boards
and electronic mail are popular means of exchanging information.
The electronic age has also inspired large numbers of people to
acquire personal computers and the software to aid in storing and
arranging genealogical data. Thanks to desk-top publishing, many
circulate the results of their research. As a nation of immigrants
we seem intent on "finding" elusive ancestors and disseminating
a written record.
Between 1607 and 1824 about a million
immigrants arrived on these shores, most of them from Great Britain,
Germany and Africa. The nineteenth-century potato famine in Ireland
resulted in the exodus of several million people from that country
beginning in 1846. Two years later, following the discovery of gold
in California, the first Asians came from China. Except for a hiatus
during the Civil War, immigration increased dramatically between
1850 and 1934 when millions left villages and towns throughout Europe
to start life anew in America. Most of them were from Germany, Scandinavia,
the Baltic, Austria- Hungary, Poland and Russia. The 1880s signaled
the first significant influx of Italians.
A year after Congress passed its
Immigration Act of 1891 (ch. 26, Stat., 1084), the Ellis Island
Immigration Station began serving the Port of New York as the first
of thirty facilities in the United States to operate under the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS). During its peak years of operation,
between 1892 and 1924, over 14 million immigrantsÄalmost 71% of
the 20 million who came to this countryÄpassed through the gates
at Ellis Island. Between 1925 and 1954 the number dropped to 4 million
immigrants, 56% of whom also disembarked at New York. Busy ports
of entry also included Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Galveston,
New Orleans, and others.
For thirty-two years, 1899 through
1931, the vast majority of arrivals were from southern Italy, Germany,
Poland, England, Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark), and Ireland,
in that order. Other eastern, central and western European countries
were represented, along with those of the Middle East, Latin America,
the East and West Indies, and islands in the Pacific. Given the
vast numbers of those who endured the hardships of life at sea,
the rigors of being "processed" at immigration stations, and who
survived the vicissitudes of life in a strange new environment,
it is little wonder that millions of their descendants are now making
an effort to see for themselves the Ellis Island Immigration Station.
It is our nation's only restored early immigration facility.
Today's descendants of nineteenth
and twentieth-century immigrants are the beneficiaries of a major
change in the focus of genealogical research in the United States.
Formerly, many viewed it as the purview of those whose ancestors
arrived here before the nation won its independence. In 1845, barely
six decades after the American Revolution, the oldest genealogical
society in the United States was established in Boston, and within
two years began publishing a quarterly genealogical journal. From
the mid-nineteenth century into the early twentieth, scores of hereditary
societies were founded with membership contingent on establishing
descent from an ancestor whose civil or military service predated
1783. As late as 1930 the eminent genealogist Donald Lines Jacobus
(1887-1970) reflected this bias toward the earliest settlers when
he claimed that the "chief value of genealogical study lies in the
interest it arouses in colonial history and national antiquities.
. . ." As recently as a generation ago many first and second-generation
Americans knew little of their origins, and they discussed recent
ties to the old country only within the family itself, if at all.
Following World War II such perceptions
and habits gradually changed as some Americans without any claim
to colonial ancestry, royalty, or the landed gentry began probing
for information about their family background. By now, pride in
ethnic and national origins has blossomed to a point where they
are acknowledged and celebrated. Festivals featuring ethnic music,
food, costumes, the language, and other aspects of cultural heritage
are annual events of many cities. Within the realm of scholarly
articles, books, and dissertations we find a wide selection that
are germane to ethnicity. And due to the increased life expectancy
in this county, the opportunities are now greater than ever to interview
elderly relatives for first-hand recollections and impressions of
a by-gone era heretofore so often lost to younger generations. As
a nation of immigrants we are delving into family history with gusto.
This dramatic acceleration of interest
can probably be attributed to a combination of events that have
occurred within a mere decade and a half: the nation's bicentennial
celebration (1976-83); publication of Alex Haley's book Roots (1976);
the memorable televised Fourth of July celebration and unveiling
of the restored Statue of Liberty (1986); and restoration of the
Ellis Island Immigration Station (1990). Demolition of the Berlin
Wall (1989), and the end of the Cold War (1990) resulted in opening
borders formerly barred for decades to travelers from the west who
can at last seek records linking them to their past.
In addition, greatly expanded facilities
of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City (1993), with its
millions of reels of microfilmed original documents, attracts some
14,500 people a week seeking records from around the world.
In what was once the old railroad
waiting room ticket office of the Ellis Island Immigration Station,
visitors pass a large diagram on the wall proclaiming "How To Find
Your Immigrant Ancestor's Ship." This provides a succinct step-by-step
procedure for locating passenger manifests. Inspired by the diagram,
as well as exhibits throughout the station and numerous "how-to
books" on genealogical research, people in all walks of life are
attempting to recover some documentary evidence concerning their
family or at least gain some insight into the immigration experience
of their kinfolk. As they discover familiar names on ship passenger
lists, naturalization papers, census records, and other contemporary
documents, the motivation is strong to pursue family origins in
the mother country.
This bibliography was prepared to
help readers at the Library of Congress who seek guidance on how
to approach the research in a foreign country, who need to know
what records are extant, what information they yield, where they
are located, and the means of obtaining them. Some of the handbooks
are more comprehensive than others, but with the growing number
of Americans who are seriously interested in pursuing this type
of research, we can expect many more to be published in the years
to come.
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