Crossing the Pond: Three Essential Steps for tracing Your Immigrant Ancestor Overseas
In genealogy, eventually most family lines reach a dead end in American records. Unless your family was Native American or enslaved, it should be possible to trace at least some of your ancestors to their countries of origin. But how? Doing isn’t always easy, but it is often possible with a lot of hard work and even a bit of luck. Read below for three essential steps to tracing your immigrant ancestors overseas.
Basic Research
Before you can make the leap to the old country, you must have established a firm genealogical connection to an immigrant ancestor. An immigrant ancestor could have been born three or four centuries ago, or only a few decades ago, so each case will be unique. Tracing your lineage back to that individual or individual correctly requires painstaking research in original source documents.
Remember to check any published information you find (secondary sources) against original documents (primary sources). Be sure to remember to make plentiful notes, documenting where each fact you uncover comes from. That way you won’t have to wonder where you found it later, or why you came to the conclusions you did.
Once you have traced your family history back to your immigrant ancestor, you are ready to begin searching for the one piece of information that is more critical to success than any other—the hometown of your ancestors.
Finding a Hometown
Nothing is more important in immigration research than finding our which town your ancestors came from outside the United States or its colonial precursors. “My great-grandfather was born in Germany, but I’m not sure what town he was from,” you might say. But is that enough to continue tracing your family history in Europe?
Unfortunately, in nearly all cases the answer is a resounding no. Determining the town of birth or residence prior to emigration is almost always necessary before any progress can be made tracing the ancestry of your family in their country of origin.
Finding your ancestor’s hometown might be as simple as obtaining a copy of his or her death certificate, which might possibly provide that crucial piece of information. More often than not, however, the place of birth will be listed as merely “Germany” or “England.” If that fails, what next? Check for obituaries, church records, headstones, cemetery (sexton’s) records, military service and pension files, passenger lists, and naturalization records. Any of these documents could contain that elusive item, the town of birth of your immigrant ancestor.
If none of the documents mentioned above include the desired town of birth of your ancestor, expand the search to include the ancestor’s siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles or other relatives. If that strategy fails, try doing the same thing with friends, neighbors, or associates who do not appear to be relatives but seem likely to be from the same country of origin. When tracing ancestors overseas, it often pays to think outside the box.
Genealogy Overseas
So, you found the name of a town of birth for one of your ancestors who was born in another country. Now what?
First of all, you must be certain you have the right town. Interpreting old handwriting can be quite challenging. Especially if it is in a foreign language and often an unfamiliar script, as will often be the case with church records and headstone inscriptions, two sources that often but not always reveal an ancestor’s town of birth. Once you believe you have correctly interpreted the name of the hometown, you are closer to the goal, but you’re still not ready to research overseas.
Next, you have to make sure which of any same-named towns in a given country is the correct hometown for your ancestor. Just like in the USA, where for example, the town name Springfield is found in many states throughout the nation, there is often more than one town of the same name in a given country.
One tactic that can help you determine the right place is to try to narrow down the county or province an ancestor might have come from within the country of origin using the sources described above. Another important tool is the gazetteer, which is like an encyclopedia of place names for a country. Once you have found the correct town, you must locate records that will hopefully include your ancestors, allowing you to reconstruct their lives in the old country.
To find records on your ancestors in their hometown, check the catalog at FamilySearch for the place name of interest. The LDS church has digitized and made freely available millions of records from around the world. Also check Ancestry and other subscription databases, many of which are available for free at public libraries. If none of those options work out, you might have to contact local religious or civil authorities in the town of interest as their records might not be available online or on microfilm.
Regardless of how you get there, once you find the correct town and assuming sufficient records still survive, you are off on a fascinating journey to learn about the lives of your ancestors in their homelands. If you feel that you will want guidance and assistance on such an arduous but rewarding adventure, contact HireAGenealogist today for a free estimate so we can begin your search today!
