Just to add to the issue of naturalization, I know in the case of some of my ancestors who came from Ireland, to naturalize or not, it wasn't so much as case of trying to blend in, not wanting the local community to know they were Irish, it was the case of being illiterate. Probably 80-90% of all Famine immigrants who came to America from 1845-1870 were illiterate, many like my HAGERTY ancestors, spoke Gaelic more often than English. The surname HAGERTY was written down by the immigration officials as HAGGERTY because that was the way it sounded with the thick brogue, you will rarely find the spelling HAGGERTY in Ireland, many other Irish names as well as those of other nationalities were butchered by the immigration clerks at the ports of entry and why, because most people coming in at the time were illiterate and didn't know any better. In our case it wasn't until the 1900 census(could have been the 1890 census, but that was lost in the fire) that you see the family name was corrected back to HAGERTY and the reason is simple, their children, the first generation American, were in their teens and twenties and literate and able to notify the census takers and everyone else they had been writing the name incorrectly. For some of the immigrants I think they didn't become citizens, because they believed when things got better at home in the old country they'd return, but illiteracy again was the primary reason why people didn't become naturalized citizens. Only the youngest brother of my Great-grandfather Hagerty ever became a citizen, because he was the only one who was learned to read and write. Until my Great-grandfather's death in 1901, his children read the Irish Echo to him and they had fun at times changing the stories around until he would eventually catch on and chase them around the house. Ed Hagerty