Dear Rolene: Picture yourself living in rural Stearns County five years after you immigrated there from "the old country." You had to work all day, six days a week. Transportation was by horse for short distances, and by train if you needed to go farther, say 25 - 50 miles. Would you travel past your local, nearby county courthouse in order to become a citizen? I wouldn't. Neither did your ancestors. They went to the closest court to become a citizen. The records are "archived" somewhere in the state of Minnesota. Many local courthouses ran out of storage space decades ago. The records could have been sent to a local university, historical society, or kept in the attic of the old facility, which is now a renovated community center. Most courthouses will tell you where their old records are kept, if you are persistent and of course, talk to the right person. Many county employees are new-hires (less than 10 years service) and don't know where the old stuff is "archived." Many courts have microfilmed their old records and are available at the state archives. In many courts the "first" papers for citizenship were considered expendable if the individual eventually received his "final" papers. Therefore, you may never find a Declaration for Naturalization, or "first" paper. Prior to 1906 the individual courts across the US could use any format they choose, as long as the record included the name of the court, the date, the name of the potential citizen, and a renouncement of allegiance to the "old country." These forms were usually preprinted and governed by the design of a particular vendor. Some vendors put a lot of information on their forms and other vendors had very little. In each court you could find several different formats used over the decades. In 1906 ALL courts had to use a form designed and printed by the United States. A copy of that record was sent to Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington, DC. If all else fails you can write to INS and have them do a search for you. It could take upwards of two years, as INS is heavily involved with the present not the past. Also, don't forget if a man served in the military he could have naturalized based on his military service. Those records may be in the home county or in a county in another state. Those are tough to find. Last, but not least, Stearns County Naturalization records have been microfilmed and are available through Interlibrary Loan from the Minnesota Historical Society at 345 Kellogg Blvd West, St. Paul, MN 55102. Their microfilm series number for Sterns County is SAM 76 (23 rolls) and you want to order the index first. I hope this information will help you. Court records are always a "seek and find" situation. Good Luck, Karen Langer Laguna Niguel, CA