Additional Facts

While the four facts described on the previous page will identify your ancestors in their home towns, during the course of your research, you'll want to uncover additional facts and information about the immigrant. These may assist you in finding the four key facts above and will certainly enhance the history aspect of your family history. Among others, the facts you should be watching for include:

• Family stories and traditions
• Family heirlooms
• Names of friends and neighbors
• The religion of the immigrant family
• The family's ethnic background
• Name changes -- both given and surnames

Where to Find This Information

Among American genealogical records, there is no one record source that will unfailingly tell you the town an immigrant may have come from. Depending on your ancestor's ethnic group, religious preference, time period of immigration, and other factors, that key piece of information, his home town, may be recorded in any (or none) of a dozen or more different sources.