Could you provide documentation that your ancestors came here legally?

[NNN0LHI]

My grandparents on my mothers side came here on a boat from Italy through Ellis Island sometime during the 1920's. I have never seen any documents proving this. I have only been told about it. I wonder if there is any documentation of that somewhere? Hell, I wonder if they spelled their last name right when they checked in?

Now on my fathers side I know for sure my grandfather was a French Canadian who walked across the boarder in the early 1900's and stayed. No documentation there. My grandmother on my dads side was a Native American woman. That is all I have been told. No documentation there either.

I think I'd have a tough time proving legal residency without the 14th amendment.

How about you?

Don

[still_one]

1. Yes, that most likely would not be standard for most people /nt

[mike r]

2. Half of Americans don't even know where their great-grandparents are buried

from something I read somewhere

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

25. I recently found out that 2 of my great grandparents were buried

across the street from my old junior high and high school (they were next to one another). They lived in Brooklyn, NY and were buried in Queens, NY where I lived at the time. My Mom must have known, but never said anything about it.

[arbusto_baboso]

3. At least one of my ancestors was an illegal immigrant.

My maternal great-grandfather literally jumped ship in New York City.

I tell people this story and they can't believe it, because I "look so white". Well, duh, I am. Think all undocs are brown people or something?

[libnnc]

4. No way

One side emigrated in 1809 and the other side in the 1790s. No clue as to how to prove they did so "legally".

[Mugweed]

5. Never cared...or had reason to

Here's something that stuck me about this whole "issue". Most of the people who are against illegal immigration that use the excuse "my grandparents/great-grandparents came here legally, why can't these people?" don't seem to remember that in order to come to the USA and legally become a citizen back then all they had to do was show up at Ellis Island and register. It's not like that anymore. If it was that easy, there would be no such thing as an illegal immigrant. Am I oversimplifying the process back then?

[pitohui]

22. wow you are WAY oversimplying the process

never been to ellis island, but i assume it's the same as angel island, and you can see the old barracks there where they held people for months or years before they cleared them for immigration

you didn't just show up, give somebody head, and get a key to the street...

[eowyn_of_rohan]

74. held people for Months or YEARS ?

I doubt that was commonplace. But if so, it sure IS different from Ellis Island.

[SoCalDem]

44. um..yes

back then phrenology & eugenics were a big deal, and lots of people got "rejected" because they "looked" mentally handicapped, when their main failing may have been that they were depressed, a bit ill for the long trip and did not speak english...and if they were suspected to BEING ill, they were often rejected.

http://www.devlin-family.com/EllisHappened.htm

It included thirty-three classes of exclusions including: idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, previously insane persons, persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority, chronic alcoholics, paupers, professional beggars, vagrants, persons with tuberculosis, or "Loathsome or dangerous contagious disease," anyone with a physical or mental defect which might affect his ability to earn a living, those who had committed crimes involving "moral turpitude," polygamists, anarchists, those who believed in or advocated overthrow of government, those who believed in the assassination of public officials, those who advocated destruction of property, those affiliated with any organization promoting the previously mentioned views, prostitutes or any one coming into the United States for immoral purposes, pimps and procurers, contract laborers, laborers who had come to the U.S. in response to advertisements for laborers published abroad, persons likely to become a public charge for any reason, those who had been deported unless approved by the Attorney General, persons whose passage had been paid for by another unless it is shown they did not belong to one of the above excluded classes, persons whose passage was paid for by any corporation, society, or foreign government, stowaways, children under 16 unaccompanied by a parent, or not coming to a parent unless approved by the Attorney General, almost all Asian immigrants not already barred by the Chinese exclusion laws (1875, 1882, 1884) and the Gentleman's Agreement with Japan (1905), and those over 16 who could not read some language except political refugees, those escaping religious persecution, and any aliens legally admitted may send for spouses, parents, grandparents or unmarried or widowed daughters over 55 years whether they can read or write.



and...


http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/goddard.shtml


snip

Goddard was a eugenicist, and his views on population growth and control were very similar to those of the Englishman Francis Galton (1822-1911). Although both men were concerned with raising their respective country's national intelligence, they differed in their approach. Galton was more vocal about promoting population growth among highly intelligent people, whereas Goddard was more focused on preventing the breeding of feebleminded people (Fancher, 1984). Goddard believed that compulsory sterilization would solve the American problem (Goddard, 1912, p. 106-107). However, he understood that many Americans would find it offensive. As an alternative, he suggested that mentally deficient individuals should be kept, humanely, in institutions:

Before considering any other method, the writer would insist that segregation and colonization is not by any means as hopeless a plan as it may seem to those who look only at the immediate increase in the tax rate. If such colonies were provided in sufficient number to take care of all the distinctly feeble-minded cases in the community, they would very largely take the place of our present almshouses and prisons, and they would greatly decrease the number in our insane hospitals. Such colonies would save an annual loss in property and life, due to the action of these irresponsible people, sufficient to nearly, or quite, offset the expense of the new plant. Besides, if these feeble-minded children were early selected and carefully trained, they would become more or less self-supporting in their institutions, so that the expense of their maintenance would be greatly reduced (Goddard, 1912, p. 105-6).

Goddard's ideas were representative of the eugenicist zeitgeist in America The American public had come to suspect that a disproportionately large percentage of the new Ellis Island immigrants were mentally defective. In 1882 the United States Congress had passed a law prohibiting mentally defective people from passing through the Ellis Island checkpoint. Enforcing this law proved to be difficult because as many as 5,000 immigrants needed to be inspected each day. In 1910 Goddard was among those invited to Ellis Island to investigate how the screening process might be expedited. In 1912 he returned to the Island, accompanied by two specially trained assistants. The procedure he developed was a two-step process: One assistant would visually screen for suspected mental defectives as the immigrants passed through the checkpoint. These individuals would then proceed to another location where the other assistant would test them with a variety of performance measures and a revised version of the Binet scales. Goddard believed that trained inspectors could be more accurate than the Ellis Island physicians; the key to their success was expertise developed through experience, and he likened the process to wine or tea-tasting (Zenderland, 1998, p. 268). The number of immigrants who were deported increased exponentially as a result of these screening measures (Zenderland, p. 273). (For more information about Goddard's activities on Ellis Island, please see our related Hot Topic.)

[sandnsea]

6. Yes

My father's French Canadian ancestors are documented in numerous turnovers in Missouri. My mother's people came through Castle Garden and there's a naturalization paper on my great-grandfather. My great-grandmother's people lived in Jamestown and fought in the Revolution.

Regardless, none of that gives one of them the right to be here. This isn't French, Swiss, German or English land.

[TrogL]

7. I'm adopted

I have no idea who my ancestors are.

[LiberalEsto]

8. Yes. 1949

My parents were Estonian citizens who had fled their country -- my father to escape the Nazis and later my mother, to escape Stalin. They and my grandmother arrived by ship from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York City, after spending years in a Displaced Persons refugee camp, where they met. They managed to find an American sponsor to help them immigrate by the sheerest of luck -- Mom found a note from two Canadian sisters in a pair of shoes they had donated to the Red Cross or some other relief organization. My mother wrote to them, and the sisters worked hard to find a sponsor for my family, an Estonian-American couple in Brooklyn, NY.

[madamesilverspurs]

9. Define "legally".

My ancestors arrived on the Mayflower and other than a couple of family bibles, we have no real proof. Given their impact on the native populations, I'd rather go with the great-grandparents who came here from Denmark and arrived through Ellis Island.


-

[Mariana]

35. If your ancestors were here when the Constitution was ratified

then they became citizens at that time. You wouldn't need to go back any further than that, in the hypothetical situation described in the OP.

[AngryAmish]

10. Yes. I keep my mom's social security card on my desk

I have their citizenship papers at home.

Now, my dad did fudge the rules a tad...

[zipplewrath]

11. Sorta

We can trace ourselves back to Ellis Island. But he was apparently so dirt poor when he left Ireland that no one noticed he left. We can't find anything that shows he existed there.

The reality is, and the hubris of so many nut jobs, is that there really wasn't anything like "illegal immigration" for a long time in this country. Truth is, I've got grand parents for whom the only "documentation" of their own birth was a church record of a baptism. The vast majority of us would have a very hard time proving our lineage through the use of particularly "official" documents.

[blueworld]

12. Great, we have to go back to GRANDPARENTS???

I agree that the status of immigrants is harder to prove, but frankly if they want to go back that far, I wonder if any proof would be adequate. The loons don't even believe birth certificates, ferpetesake.

Ironically for me, my Southern grandpa was born at home & the only "certificate" was filed at a local church which burned down years later. When he retired he had to get signatures of folks who knew him & could vouch that he was born here - not many were left! And his family was "DAR" status; here forever.

Anyway, here's a link to the Ellis Island research center for anyone who may be interested in trying to prove something:) It's fun anyway. I found my Italian grandpa's name & the ship he sailed in on. http://www.ellisisland.org/

[deminwi]

13. No, but I'm not sure that you could say they came here illegally, either

Seeing as how my family came to this country, well it wasn't the United States back then, in 1694. My ancestors were some of the original Virginia settlers.

[dgibby]

41. So were mine.

Small world, isn't it?

[proteus_lives]

63. Mine came over in the 1750s.

It's amazing what your can discover.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. Yep

:-)
Moms -
My great grandfather came from France via Belgium through ellis island. Last summer my mom and I took the boat tour out and looked at the book. It's him. They even have records from the FIRST time he tried to came over, was put in quarantine for two weeks (like me he had ankylosing spondylitis, issues with mobility and breathing as a result), then sent back.

My Irish ancestors on my MOTHER'S side.. . .All came over and settled in VA/WV between 1698 and 1720. But that was a time when strangers were welcome here. ;-)

My mother's German ancestors came over in the 1830's and settled first in what is now known as Panama, then moved up to the Pittsburgh PA area. I don't know if you COULD legally 'immigrate' at that time.

Dad's -
My dad's Irish ancestors came through Mississippi in 1848 and were documented when they came in.

My black ancestors were really an import/export commodity. I can only trace back to 1832 when the man that would be my great, great, great grandfather R was sold from a plantation in VA to one in Alabama. We have those record obtained and verified. It's hard for many black Americans to know if their ancestors were brought here as a 'legal import/export' or if they were smuggled in on the back end from the Caribbean.

My Cherokee ancestors - well the rest of my ancestors can kiss their asses! :rofl:

[Ilsa]

15. No. I also can't provide proof that my children are part American Indian

on their fathers' side. A whole big can of worms, isn't it?

[old mark]

16. My mom's European family came to PA in the 1630's, and bought a lot of land

from the Penn boys (William Penn's sons). They have deeds on file at the appropriate courthouse. The rest of mom's family was Osage Indians and were already here.Can't prove or disprove much about that.
My dad and his mom came here from Germany in 1920 and have all their papers; both became US citizens, so I am, since I was born here in PA...BUT-I don't have a government birth certificate, only one from a hospital...So I guess I can never be president. (Good thing for some people, too...)


mark

[slackmaster]

31. Hey, so did some of my mom's family.

They bought land from the Penns as well. It's very likely that we have some kind of distant cousin relationship.

I don't know many details and do not care to dig into it. My mom loses me very quickly when she starts talking about ancestry.

[old mark]

38. Mom's family used to own most of the present Northampton County, PA...

They went downhill pretty fast, don't own anything unusual today...


mark

[RockaFowler]

17. Sort of

My Dad came here in the 1960's legally I think. He had to have a sponsor in order to even come into the country.

[pitohui]

18. yeah it's pretty easy, remember the "roots" craze?

my mom doc'd all that crap a long time ago, in any case, i can document that both of my parents were born on usa soil, and all of their grandparents, to be honest, considering that almost everyone here, even your GRANDPARENTS were born in the 20th century, then the docs aren't that hard to get in a lot of areas

i was surprised even tho my dad's side is basically scots-irish peasants, for lack of a better word, it's easy to trace back his family for several centuries

in the "one drop of blood" states like mississippi apparently some courthouses got burned so people could pass more easily or whatev, but even so, people can still get parent's birth certificates and prove where their parents came from, unless they're like 95 and nobody's deporting 95 year olds for taking people's jobs

i'm not sure what your argument is, it might have made sense if it was like 1910 and most people's parents/grands were born in the 19th century when documentation was still poor but...wait...i'll take that back...my friend just followed his family tree all the way back to the year 1200 going thru multiple countries, italy, france, cuba, haiti, louisiana (which i guess was france then), united states

bureaucrats have kept records of legit people for a butt load of centuries actually -- they say that the first writing ever found in sumeria was tax records and even if it's just a joke i half ways believe it

if you can't prove who you are, i'm going to raise an eyebrow, because unless you were adopted i think you could prove if you wanted to

i'm not saying you "should" prove but you "could" prove

tons of records from ellis and angel island far as i know...we're a country of bureacrats & scribblers, frankly, names might be mispelled but that's no biggie

[LaurenG]

19. If I worked really hard I could probably prove some of them. nt

[JNelson6563]

20. My family came from Ireland via Canada to Michigan

I am only second generation born here. I'm sure they came over illegally and no one seemed to care much. Had lots of kids in short time and Voila! Whole new neighborhood. ;-)

Julie

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

21. I belong to Ancestors.com and have traced my family for all but two great great grandparents through

Ellis Island. They came here in 1860.

The names can be quite different. I found 2 of my great grandparents using their Hebrew names and 2 of my grandparents by looking for spelling mistakes. As it came to be, they used their Hebrew names, and although their last name began with a Z, Ellis Island had it is an F. I saw a copy of the manifest and saw how the Z could have been mistaken for an F. I felt triumphant when I found them!

[Obamanaut]

23. It's too late to worry about that. I was born here. However, my father

did come legally, became a citizen, and was in the US Army in WW1.

Most of the concern is for the folks who are here illegally currently.

[SweetieD]

24. My ancestors were africans brought here for slave labor before the 1800s

Not sure where that falls in the legal spectrum. Not everyone came here is an immigrant.

[DevonRex]

46. Sure as hell shouldn't have been legal but we're glad you're here. :)

:hug:

[EFerrari]

26. The white side of my family is a mystery to me. The colorful side

has badges. I can prove my mother was here legally.

[Mariana]

27. Some of my ancestors were colonists as early as the 1650's

on both sides. Their descendants, of course, became citizens when the Constitution was ratified. Yes, there is documentation. My husband is a legal immigrant from the UK and a naturalized citizen. We're good.

I'm very glad we have the 14th regardless.

[slackmaster]

28. Yes.

The immigration of my ancestors on my father's side in the 1870s is well documented.

People on my mother's side came here during the British colonial period. Their immigration is well documented.

[Riftaxe]

29. Very easily, although doing so provides

no purpose that i can fathom.

[JuniperLea]

30. My 11th great grandmother came here from England as a little girl...

On the Mayflower. I've never heard of any Mayflower passenger having legal entry documentation... there was no country to apply to in any case.





I've been told that "our people met our people at Plymouth Rock" but there's no documentation of that side of the family coming here either... some say they weren't always here.

[crim son]

32. On my father's side of the family, yes.

On my mother's, I don't believe so.

[starroute]

33. My grandmother once thought she'd try to prove her citizenship

She was born in Russia in 1890 and her family left for the US as soon as she was a few months old. She'd always just told census-takers and such that she was born here, but at some point -- maybe after the 1960 census -- she decided she should get legitimate.

So she sent away for a "proof of citizenship" application -- and it asked for things like what ship she'd arrived on and the names of people who could verify that she was really there. By then she was in her 70's and everybody in her family who'd been old enough to recall the trip was dead, so she just said the heck with it and went back to lying.

I actually found the ship's record with her and her family on a genealogy site a few months ago. But even if she'd had access to that in 1960, she would have had no way of proving that it was really her. (And the fact that most of her family had anglicized their first names -- and that she'd changed hers completely -- wouldn't have helped either.)

I also have absolutely no record of my other grandmother's arrival in the US. I've never found her on either Ellis Island or immigration listings. She showed up around 1913 and died of the Spanish flu in 1919, so she never became a citizen.

I also found my grandfather's family on the 1910 census -- and it showed that after 25 years in this country, his mother still did not speak English and had never become a citizen. So much for assimilation.

[Uben]

34. My documentation is on my knuckles

....wanna closer look?

[Liberal_in_LA]

40. lol

[CoffeeCat]

36. Boy, I'm in big trouble...

I was adopted at birth--and I do not know who my birthparents are.

Strike one.

My adoptive parents should have never been parents and I have no contact
with them. Three out of five of their children either don't speak to them
or have very limted contact.

Strike two.

So, basically--I have no history. Or parents. I don't even know what nationality
I am (but I'm definitely Irish on St. Patrick's Day!) :)

Should I just turn myself into ICE now?

[damntexdem]

37. I can guarantee that most of them did not.

They were from Europe.

But some did come here legitimately, the Cherokees and Choctaws. I cannot, however, provide documentation for those ancestors.

[Scipio Africanus]

39. Sure - Gloucester Co., VA has records of sales of African captives

[yowzayowzayowza]

42. Yep, Native American ancestry.

eta - My Great grandmother was the only survivor of her tribe's massacre on the Trail of Tears in southern Alabama. My Aunt, a professional librarian, found an article in the local paper documenting the event and her adoption by a Southern Baptist minister. I don't recall the name of her tribe as it had enuf consonants to choke a Russian.

[AnneD]

53. Yo.....cuz.....

Wado. :hi:

[yowzayowzayowza]

55. Gvlieliga.

Oniyv!

Google amused!!!

:hi:

eta - The only things I got outa the deal are an Indian sense of time and a skin cast that contrasts with my blond hair & blue eyes enuf to prompt multiple doctors over the years to inquire about my liver, but at least I tan well.
:rofl:

[AnneD]

57. You haven't been to Oklahoma......

some one can be full blood and have red or bond hair and blue eyes. Cherokees are the chameleons. My aunties and uncles were full blood, but they had every color combination of hair and eyes imaginable. You'll fit right in.

[yowzayowzayowza]

67. IIRC, her tribe was unallied, neither Creek nor Cherokee, and...

weren't part of the original Trail of Tears as they were evicted later. I'll have to get with my Aunt again on the details ... haven't discussed it in a decade and a half er so. Also, haven't been able to find any info online.

[southmost]

43. who cares about documentation?

heck, I know people from the border area who were too poor to afford documentation. For example, to save money on documentation, my great grandparents recycled the birth certificate of one of their sons who died within a year and gave it to the next-born (double savings because no death certificate was needed either), They were born in what is now the U.S. , My brother's fiancee has the same issue, for that matter many many indigenous peoples in the Americas don't have any documentation from any government source. All this talk about anti-documentation is a direct class-warfare assault on the poor. (If you cant pay for hospitalization or professional midwife you don't get documentation for your children)

[DevonRex]

45. Mine were here before the US was a nation. So I reckon I'm okay. nt

[Sapphocrat]

47. Nope, because they were all WOPs.

Literally, WithOut Papers.

Italians via Ellis Island on one side, but no known surviving paperwork, and on the other side, one great-grandfather who was a genuine, bona fide "illegal" -- who never learned more than two or three words of English, and was one of the hard-workingest, tax-payingest Americans this country could ever be lucky enough to claim as one of its own.

I guess that makes my grandfather a "terror baby."

P.S. Fuck the bigots.

[Gormy Cuss]

48. Yes, but I've been working on family history for decades.

As for your Italian grandparents, if indeed they came through Ellis Island in the 1920s it's pretty easy to confirm that (and get a bit more info about where they were from exactly in many instances.)
http://www.ellisisland.org/

[Merlot]

49. If your grandparents came through Ellis Island you can look up the ships

manifest. My grandparents also came from Italy. One of my aunts did the research and found the name of the ship they came on and who all came.

I'm not sure if that counts as documentation, but check it out anyhow, it's very cool.

maternal grandfather actually came from canada just around 1920 - illegally as well.

Interesting the commonality in both our family trees? could you be my long lost undocumented cousin? ; )

[AlabamaLibrul]

50. My great,da,da,da grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War.

I guess that makes him legally American? Or undocumented too since he was really British?

Then on the other side it's Native American, so I don't have to have no stinkin' documents.

[hayu_lol]

54. Earliest trace on my family was to Wales in 400CE...

all the major lines came to this country between 1627 and 1760. Well documented in available archives and museums. Primary locations: MA, CT, PA, NC. Five lines served at Valley Forge, straggled west and intermarried.

That and a buck will buy a cup of ordinary coffee.

[AnneD]

51. I can't prove they were here legally but....

I can prove they were at the dock to greet folks......:think: :spray:

[Spider Jerusalem]

52. Most of my ancestors were in America in 1776.

My father's family (my direct male line) have been in Maryland since 1665. My g-g-g-g-grandfather was a militia officer in the Revolution (in addition to being a justice of the peace and tax commissioner in Worcester County, Maryland). So yes, I'd be able to provide documentation.

[RB TexLa]

56. I know some of mine didn't go through Ellis Island. If someone can get in I say more power to them

[Vickers]

58. My grandfather was a ghost. There is some evidence that he killed a guy

and maybe another guy, and tried to kill at least two others (the 4 incidents were in 3 different places).

He wasn't exactly the kind of guy to keep paperwork or annotate significant events in the family bible, and he left my grandma and dad pretty early on, and we didn't find out any more about him until 3 years after he died (and his then-wife knew nothing about us).

So...no.

[hfojvt]

59. I think the law may have been different back then

one case I know of is an Irish ancestor. He became a citizen by proving five years of residency.

I also know that people flowed across the Canadian border without too much trouble. Some of my mom's family in New York went up to Canada and many people in Michigan married people from Canada and vice versa.

But I can find most of my ancestors in the 1870 census. Does that count?

[cherokeeprogressive]

60. Yep. My Great Grandparents both have numbers in the Dawes Final Rolls of the Five Civilized Tribes.

I have a CDIB to prove it.

[proteus_lives]

61. Yes.

I believe the family still has the documents somewhere.

[Cleita]

62. I actually have excellent documentation.

Because I was born in a foreign country, my parents had to prove their full American citizenship so I could be documented as a born American citizen of foreign birth. So I have all kinds of notarized documents, legal documents and certificates that state this. My father was somewhat anal about this so I know that a lot of children born to Americans in foreign countries don't have the excellent documentation that I do. Very few people that I have known in my almost seventy years of living in this country, who were born here, have the documentation that I have. Many don't even have birth certificates and can't get them because the hospitals they were born in no longer exist and there are no records left because of various reasons like fires and other catastrophic events. These people who want to bring up this fourteenth amendment stupidity might be surprised if it backfires on them and they find they can't prove they are Americans born on American soil.

[davepc]

64. Ellis Island kept excellent records (mostly steamship manifests), and they are searchable today.

I have copies of the records from my maternal side of the family from the late 1890's and from my paternal side from the late 1910's.

[shimmergal]

65. Yes,

my parents did a lot of genealogical research and most of my ancestors were here before the American Revolution. One many times/greatgrandfather was an early governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony; I'm not bragging because some of his official acts were a bit oppressive, based on his Puritan beliefs.

The only exceptions are two ggg-grandmothers who came here as "mail-order brides" from the Scandinavian countries sometime in the nineteenth century; presumably they had to have papers to get in under this status.

Maybe those yelling to change the 14th Amendment should have to prove all their ancestors came here legally?

[NuttyFluffers]

66. yes. and for both sides.

:hug:

[JonLP24]

68. I don't know

I know on my mom's side ancestors were kicked out of their country by England. I had one ancestor--same side--came here as an indentured servant. He was also an orphan.

[Sabriel]

69. Nope. My Russian grandmother arrived illegally through Canada during WWI.

She married someone right away.

[MerryBlooms]

70. I can't prove Jack on my side, but

Apparently Irish on my dad's side and English/Dutch on my mom's - but my sons are Choctaw and Dutch with full records on my husband's side.

But, I'll go ahead and answer the door if immigration shows up for me - I don't tan, lots of freckles and have unruly curly redish hair. ;-)

[MrScorpio]

71. My African ancestors, Native American ancestors or white slave owning ancestors?

This might be a bit of a challenge.

[IndianaGreen]

72. My parents' ship crashed near Roswell, NM, in July 1947

The US government provided Ma and Pa with the necessary immigration papers in exchange for their technical know how.

[LostinVA]

73. Yes, I can, and found it the same place you can

At the Ellis Island website. You can print out the manifest and everything.

[nadinbrzezinski]

75. Yeah but that would be me

and I got them naturalization papers

:-)

[rustydog]

76. Paternal side yes...maternal...I am not sure