Hello Diana, I'll answer what I can, below, others can add a lot too. Ask questions, as you need guidance. Every ancestor's path is different and tools you may need will vary. > > If it list place born in the Census as Czech and then list > them as Slovak does this mean they were born in Czech? Is > Slovak a culture or country or a place? We must make a distinction between Ethnicity and Nationality: If an ethnic Greek from Greece goes to live in France and becomes a citizen there, he is still ethnically Greek, but a citizen of France. The answer to your question depends on the year of the census. Before 1918, most immigrants listed their nationality as Hungarian. After 1918, the Country of Czechoslovakia was formed from portions of Austria, Hungary. Its possible the census taker was writing "Czech" as shorthand for Czechoslovakia, the nationality. It contained a diverse number of ethnicities, including Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans and others. > > I am new to immigrant ancestors. IF in the census it states year of > immigration and the year is say 1910, alien DOES this mean > this is when the > arrived in the USA? > The answer is only as good as the information the fella talking to the census taker. There was no verification. Some people did indeed lie, for good and bad reason, though most errors were introduced because of forgetfulness and poor recordkeeping. Be skeptical of all dates until you can corroborate them. > How would I go about finding where they came in at? Well, considering that in 1910, over 85% of immigrants to America came in from port of New York, do a search at www.ellisislandrecords.org If that fails, the National Archives and the Mormon's Family history center have copies of ship manifests from other ports. See http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/immigration/immigrat.html or > What area of THEIR country they are from? You really have to get to a town or village to make any significant progress in overseas research. Here are my suggestions. Very few folks make much progress by singularly searching for a surname. Name variations due to errors and overt changes are widely known. Your key to success will be to identify the ancestral village. Most archival records are organized that way. The most reliable places to find the ancestral village is in one of the following documents, if they emigrated to US. a) Church (U.S.) records of immigrant's marriage or offspring's birth. (Actually immigrants as a group were more trusting of their clergy than bureaucrats and consequentially more truthful!) b) Social Security Application (if legally employed in US 1936 or later). c) INS File (Alien reports, 1st or 2nd papers, naturalization documents) d) INS Alien Registration Form (if a resident alien in the US in the year 1940 only) e) US Census from 1900, 1910 or 1920 f) US Port of Entry records, if you can identify date of arrival. Held by the National Archives (and filmed by Mormons). There is an index for records, organized by last name (SOUNDEX) referenced to date of arrival (records 1902 and later). www.ellisislandrecords.org contains a database and images of manifests from 1892 to 1924 from the Port of NY. 80% of all U.S. immigrants between 1892 and 1924 passed thru here. SOUNDEX is particularly useful in locating surnames that sound-alike. g) If all the above fails, consider looking at a present-day phone book. For Slovakia, see http://www.centroconsult.sk/Support/phone.html#codes Although descendants may have moved from the ancestral village, it is likely you'll still find some of them nearby. The LEAST reliable places to find the ancestral village are: a) U.S. Death Certificate - the information is only as good as the informant, who is many times uninformed or in error. b) Obituaries - For the same reason as (a). Read my material on identifying place names here: http://www.iabsi.com/gen/public/kingdom_of_hungary.htm > > No one is living that can help me with this information, no > one every inquired much into it. You know more than you think. You know who the immigrant individual was. You know when they died and roughly how old they were. You can then estimate a date of birth. You also know where they lived, where they were buried. You might know what language they spoke. You might know where they went to church. You may not know all these answers, but you've got a start. Good Luck, Bill Tarkulich