If you have a chronology for an ancestor and, during their adult lifetime, you have five year gaps where you are not certain where the ancestor lived or what they were doing, try and locate a record to provide that information. Answering those questions may help you determine more about where the ancestor was from and what her origins were. Did they head west? Were they in an institution? Did they have a financial setback? Did they have a “short-term” marriage that did not last?
Did that obituary confuse the half-siblings, step-siblings, and the full siblings? An estate settlement will be concerned about the accuracy of those relationships. An obituary, being a less formal document (and certainly not a legal one), may not be. Always consider the possibility that relationships in an obituary may not be entirely correct.
When a man naturalized in the United States in the 19th and early 20th century, his minor children automatically became naturalized as well, even if their names are not listed in the naturalization. When foreign born Ekke Behrens applied for a homestead in Nebraska in the 1880s, he included his father’s naturalization as proof of his citizenship. If you are unable to locate a naturalization for your foreign born ancestor, consider the possibility that his father’s naturalization served as his naturalization as well.
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