Tag Archives: Dan Niemiec

Last month we learned how to find our ancestors’ applications to become United States Citizens. I would like to add some new information about the process first after spending the past month trying to find many distant relatives. The only index on line is an index to the card file. This is what the card looks like:     The first critical piece of information we need is the “Title and location of court”. There are basically three choices here that cover 99% of the people in this index: US District Superior Court Cook County Circuit Court Cook County A …

The recent documentary “The Italian Americans” discussed the period at the beginning of World War II. The government decided for security reasons that certain foreign-born American residents would be classified as “enemy aliens”. These were people whose home countries were at war with us. Also, these people had not filed for citizenship. Obviously, many Italian Americans fit this classification until the practice was ended in 1943 when Mussolini’s government fell. There were many reasons Italian immigrants opted to not become American citizens in the years leading up to World War II. Many wanted to return to Italy after they had …