On Thu, 1 Sep 2005 18:13:53 UTC, hilary@proppersource.com (Hilary
Henkin) opined:

Dear Howie,

You might want to consider trying to get copies of his naturalization
file. Unless he became a citizen very early (1880-90s, for example),
the documents could have his arrival details. At least, they'll
probably have other information you'll find interesting and useful.

You'l want to narrow down your search as much as possible.

If he lived in a certain area most of his live, for the time being,
assume he became a citizen there. But remember this is only an
assumption,and you may have to consider other regions as well

You'll want to find him in as many US censuses as you
can. Generally, they asked the year the person became a citizen, and
if not a citizen, whether they'd applied ("Pa") or were still a
foreigner ("Al"). If you're lucky, you'll find concensus, and have a
specific year or two to search.

Censuses, of course, can be tricky, because the information is the
unsubstantiated word of the interviewee. An example is that of my late
grandparents. In the 1900 census, they informed the numerator that
they arrived in 1898. In 1910, their arrival date was in 1896, and
they had been US citizens since 1902 (two years earlier than would
have been possible had they stuck with the 1898 arrival date; these
data were repeated in the 1920 census. One might think the difference
represents a subterfuge to enable them to become citizens a little
earlier than the calendar would otherwise warrant.

Oddly enough however, a thorough search of the records of the various
courts by which they might have been naaturalized (conducted by
another of their grandchildren who is an attorney practicing in those
courts) failed to find any evidence of naturalization whatever.

You can tell an enumerator anything, and he will write it down; that's
the nature of censuses. Census data needs to be confirmed by an
independent source of the same information.

--
Stan Goodman, Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel

Searching:
NEACHOWICZ/NOACHOWICZ, NEJMAN/NAJMAN, SURALSKI: >from Lomza Gubernia
ISMACH: >from Lomza Gubernia, Galicia, and Ukraina
HERTANU, ABRAMOVICI, LAUER: >from Dorohoi District, Romania
GRISARU, VATARU: >from Iasi, Dorohoi, and Mileanca, Romania

See my interactive family tree (requires Java 1.1.6 or better). the URL is:
http://www.hashkedim.com

For reasons connected with anti-spam/junk security, the return address is
not valid. To communicate with me, please visit my website (see the URL
above -- no Java required for this purpose) and fill in the email form there.