Hometown Heroes
Most immigrants to the United States endured a grueling, weeks-long journey via ship. Today, many of their descendants dream of doing that trip in reverse—albeit much more comfortably, by plane in less than a day.
But before we can do that, we first need to determine an immigrant’s exact location of origin. You’ll need to know what archives to search, as well as what records were created. (And, if you’re traveling, which places to visit.)
Unfortunately, many ancestors left scant details about their hometowns. They might have identified a big city like Naples or Paris or Warsaw, but were actually from little villages near those big-name locales. “Near enough” isn’t good enough for Old World research, since few other countries historically had (for example) widely available, full-country censuses. You need to determine that exact town or village, plus what district(s) it was a part of throughout time.
Luckily for astute US researchers, many records can lead us to the specific place information we seek. This article discusses some records for determining ancestral hometowns, including those that are often overlooked or harder to come by.
1 SHIP MANIFESTS
These widely researched documents are often among the first resources for immigrant ancestors. I covered ship manifests as part of my roundup of basic immigration records in the January/February 2022 issue <www.familytreemagazine.com/records/immigration/beginner-immigration-records>. But here are some highlights about this type of record:
• The government first mandated passenger reporting in 1820. Prior to that year, coverage will vary.• Before 1891, manifests were primarily created to , not document immigrants. As such, the genealogical information in them is limited, and almost• After 1891 (and over the next two decades), more information was added to ship manifests. Details helpful for origin information include place of last residence (1891), exact place of birth (1906), and name of closest relative or friend left behind (1907).
