April 5, 2024
Many of my ancestors were immigrants who arrived in the U.S. during the 19th century. To find out more about their lives, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for various immigration documents for them. Over the years I’ve located dozens of naturalization records for grandparents, great-grandparents, second great-grandparents and all manner of collateral relatives.
Of the dozens of records I’ve found, almost none were for women. Since half of the relatives who immigrated were women, this may seem strange. Because of the ways that citizenship laws were written, before 1922 virtually no women applied for citizenship under their own names.
From the beginning of the United States until 1922, women obtained derivative citizenship from their fathers or husbands. If a woman’s father was a citizen, then she was too. If the father was an immigrant and then naturalized, his minor daughters were citizens too. The same situation prevailed when a woman married. If her husband was a citizen, then she was too. If he was not, then she was not.
Occasionally, a judge did allow a woman to take out citizenship papers in her own name. This sometimes happened when a woman wanted to make a homestead claim. Women were allowed to make claims, but they needed to be citizens to receive final title to the property. Some judges would allow single women or widows to become citizens in these circumstances. These types of naturalization were rare. I’ve looked at a lot of homestead records, but I’ve never seen a naturalization record for a woman.
By 1922, women were able to vote, and they wielded more power. This resulted in new laws that stated that a woman who wanted to become a U.S. citizen needed to apply for naturalization in her own name. No longer could she receive derivative citizenship from a father or a husband.
If an ancestor naturalized after 1922, you should find naturalization records for them, whether the ancestor was a man or a woman. You may also find records such as Certificates of Citizenship which were issued to women who had previously been naturalized through derivative citizenship and needed proof of that citizenship. My grandmother, who had become an American citizen when she married my American grandfather in 1918, wanted to make a trip to Norway in 1953. To get a passport, she needed to obtain a Certificate of Citizenship.
Some women lost their American citizenship when they married non-citizens. An American woman who married an alien between 1906 and 1922 was stripped of her American citizenship. After the laws changed in 1922, women were able to take an oath of allegiance to regain their citizenship. Records of those oaths can be found on websites such as Ancestry and FamilySearch.
While women made up a large portion of the immigrants who flocked to America in the 19th and 20th centuries, citizenship laws in effect for that period make it certain that genealogists will find far fewer naturalization records for them. It’s always worth checking, but don’t be surprised if you don’t find naturalization records for your female ancestors.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society