3. To search for a case file for a specific person, send NARA staff the following information in your inquiry:
a. Names of the individual who immigrated, including “paper” names, maiden names, and alternative
spellings. What is most helpful here is how the name would have been written by immigration authorities
and on other legal documents. Unfortunately, we have no way to refer to our files with someone's name as
written in Chinese characters or other non-Romanized languages.
b. Dates (specific or approximate) of immigration/arrival into the United States. If they often returned to
their country of origin (as was the case with men who went back to visit their wives or brought family
over) it's helpful to know when they made these subsequent trips, if you do know. Knowing about these
later voyages is often more important than the date of initial immigration.
c. Date of birth (specific or approximate)
d. Names of family members traveling with them or to whom they were going to live with in the U.S.
e. How they entered the U.S. (as the child of a citizen, a merchant, a “paper son”, etc.)
f. Where they lived after they arrived in the U.S.
g. Whether they later became naturalized citizens: if they lived in the San Francisco area, we can search
our facility’s federal court naturalization records for additional information.