Wisconsin Index to Naturalization Petitions - FamilySearch Historical Records

What is in This Collection?
Index to petitions filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee from 1848-1990. This is an incomplete file and only contains the index for surnames A-Bloom.

What Can These Records Tell Me?
The following information may be found in these records:

Naturalization
 * Certificate number
 * Full name of citizen
 * Residence
 * Birth date
 * Admission date
 * Certificate date
 * Name of court
 * Place of court
 * Petition number
 * Alien registration number
 * Signature of immigrant

How Do I Search This Collection?
You can search the index or view the images or both. To begin your search, it is helpful to know:
 * The name of your ancestor
 * The approximate date and place of naturalization

View the Images
View images in this collection by visiting the Browse Page.

How Do I Analyze the Results?
Compare each result from your search with what you know to determine if there is a match. This may require viewing multiple records or images. Keep track of your research in a research log.

I Found the Person I Was Looking For, What Now?

 * Use the information to find other records such as emigrations, port records, and ship’s manifests
 * Look for the Declaration of Intent soon after the immigrant arrived, and then look for the Naturalization Petition five years later, when the residency requirement would have been met. Look for naturalization records in federal courts and then in state, county, or city courts. An individual may have filed the first and final papers in different courts and sometimes in a different state if the person moved. Immigrants who were younger than 18 when they arrived did not need to file a Declaration of Intent as part of the process
 * Learn foreign and “Americanized” names
 * Learn the place of origin and find church and vital records such as birth, baptism, marriage, and death records. Also search for military, land and probate records
 * Use the information to find additional family members in censuses
 * Repeat this process with additional family members found, to find more generations of the family

I Can’t Find the Person I’m Looking For, What Now?

 * Try viewing the original record. Indexes and transcriptions may not include all the data found in the original records. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name
 * If your ancestor does not have a common name, collect entries for every person who has the same surname. This list can help you identify possible relatives that can be verified by records
 * If you cannot locate your ancestor in the locality in which you believe they lived, then try searching records of a nearby locality in an area search
 * Try variant spellings of your ancestor’s name
 * Remember that sometimes individuals went by nicknames or alternated between using first and middle names

Research Helps
The following articles will help you in your research for your family in the state of Wisconsin.
 * Wisconsin Guided Research
 * Research Tips and Strategies
 * Step-by-Step Research

Citing This Collection
Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Identifying your sources helps others find the records you used.