From the earliest days of the United States of America, citizenship was an important status for its residents, allowing individuals the freedom to live and work in the country, to enter and leave as desired, and to vote and hold public office. My next two columns will discuss citizenship and naturalization, and how information regarding that status can help in genealogical research.

When the 13 colonies became the United States, under Article IV of the new Constitution, the existing citizens of each colony (state) automatically were entitled to all privileges and immunities of the citizens of every other state, including citizenship in the United States. After the Constitution was ratified in 1788, persons born within the territorial limits of the United States qualified as citizens. This is known as citizenship by birthright.

In 1788, however, in accordance with the laws of most colony/states, only whites were citizens, and only white male landowners could vote. After the Civil War, free blacks and former slaves were granted the vote, still withheld from women and from indigenous peoples who maintained tribal affiliations.

A valued characteristic of our great nation is that citizenship has also been available, under varying circumstances, to persons born in other countries, who wish to become Americans; that is, to gain citizenship by naturalization.

The first federal law defining a procedure for naturalization as a United States citizen was passed in 1790. It explicitly stated that only “free white” immigrants could become naturalized citizens. By 1870, immigrant blacks were permitted to become naturalized. In 1882, Chinese were explicitly excluded from being naturalized.

In 1890, a law was passed requiring Native Americans to “apply” for citizenship, similar to naturalization of immigrants. I can’t let this pass without commenting on the injustice of the fact that indigenous peoples, born in the land of their ancestors, could not be citizens of the United States until 14 years after the Revolution.

In 1920, women, already citizens in every other capacity, were granted the right to vote. In 1922 and 1923, first Japanese and then immigrants from India were prohibited from being naturalized.

Then the Immigration Act of 1924 limited the annual number of immigrants from any country to 2 percent of the number of people from that country who were living in the U.S. in 1890. This essentially reduced to a trickle the immigration from southern and eastern Europe (Italy, Poland, etc.), while 86 percent of those admitted were from northern European countries like Germany, Britain, and Ireland.

Needless to say, if people couldn’t immigrate, neither could they be naturalized. These quotas remained in place until 1965.

Various laws were passed over the years to allow Filipinos, Native Americans, and other immigrants to gain naturalization or ease citizenship requirements for those who served in the U.S. military. In 1947, barriers to the Native American vote were removed, and in 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act granted all people of Asian ancestry the right to become citizens.

In 1965, the Hart-Celler Act abolished the national origins quota system that was established in 1924, replacing it with a preference system that focused on immigrants' skills and family relationships with U.S. citizens or residents.

How do these facts about citizenship and naturalization impact genealogical research? In many cases, the impact is negative; that is, it precludes finding certain information about some ancestors. For example, voter registration lists exist for many communities and jurisdictions; however, before you spend time searching such lists for an ancestor, be sure he or she held the right to vote during the period you’re researching.

Also, early censuses may have listed solely white male landowners by name, giving only a simple count of women, children, or slaves in a household. A future column will discuss ways of using census data about naturalization to further genealogical research.

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