Cindy, Many of those earlier naturalization documents (pre 1906) did not contain those valuable first papers you refer to. The local county officials were responsible for the naturalizations from 1848 to 1906. No one verified the information provided by the applicant. Quite often the applicants memory of the dates was less than accurate. It was not until the federal government (the INS) assumed control of the naturalization process in Jan 1906 that those first papers you seek were completed and most times verified for accuracy. If you view ship manifests you will see penciled in notes with numbers alongside of a passenger's name. These marks were the work of the federal employees who checked the applicant's (first papers) information for accuracy. Trying to help Joe Bryer GRSNP . > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 6:36:45 -0700 > From: <anahar@charter.net> > Subject: Re: [PALUZERN] Citizenship papers > To: paluzern@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: <581316512.1181309805729.JavaMail.root@fepweb05> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > A reminder to researchers looking at securing copies of Naturalization/Citizenship records that they request copies of their ancestors 'first papers' as well as the final record of naturalization. > > Oftentimes when requesting these records researchers ask for naturalization and receive the final papers only; the very imporatant 'first papers' are often overlooked. > > I apologize if this was addressed in an earlier posting - due to the recent severe weather in Wisconsin my internet server was down and I missed a number of e-mails. > > Cindy in WI > > >