The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) does not have a master index of all naturalizations that occurred in the United States. To locate naturalization records held by NARA, you must know the specific court and state in which you became naturalized and the approximate date. It is important to note that not all naturalization records are housed at NARA; our agency will only hold the records of naturalizations that occurred in a federal court.
Prior to September 27, 1906, any "court of record" (municipal, county, state, or Federal) could grant United States citizenship. Often petitioners went to the court most geographically convenient for them. As a general rule, the National Archives does not have naturalization records created in state or local courts. However, a few indexes and records have been donated to the National Archives from counties, states, and local courts. Researchers should contact the National Archives facility serving the state in which the petitioner resided to determine if records from lower courts are available.
If a naturalization took place in a Federal court, naturalization indexes, declarations of intention (with any accompanying certificates of arrival), and petitions for naturalization will usually be in the National Archives facility serving the state in which the Federal court is located. Again, as we noted earlier, no central index exists. Furthermore, in most cases, the National Archives will not have a copy of the certificate of citizenship. Two copies of the certificate were created – one given to the petitioner as proof of citizenship, and, after September 26, 1906, one forwarded to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Certificates of citizenship were issued by the Federal courts until October 1991 when naturalization became an administrative function under the INS.
All INS records are now overseen by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). USCIS maintains duplicate copies of court records (including the certificate of citizenship) created September 27, 1906-March 31, 1956 within Certificate Files (C-Files). Beginning April 1, 1956, INS began filing all naturalization records in a subject’s Alien File (A-File). To obtain your own immigration records, including information regarding your naturalization, you will need to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the USCIS. For instructions on how to do so, please check the following: https://www.uscis.gov/records/request-records-through-the-freedom-of-information-act-or-privacy-act.
Naturalization records datedprior to October 1991from the federal courts are at the National Archives. If your naturalization took place in a federal court before October 1991, you will need to contact the NARA field site that maintains federal court records for the state where you were naturalized. For example, our office, the Archives 1 Reference Branch in Washington, DC, only has records for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, while the records of the U.S. District Court for New Hampshire are held by the National Archives at Boston. To determine which facility you need, please visit our webpage athttps://www.archives.gov/research/court-records. Please note thatno central index to naturalizations exists.
On the other hand, records for naturalizations that occurredafter October 1991are held by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, successor agency to the Immigration and Naturalization Service or INS). If your naturalizations occurred in October 1991 or after, you will need to contact USCIS directly. For information on requesting copies of records from USCIS, you will need to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with USCIS. Please go to their webpage at:https://www.uscis.gov/records/request-records-through-the-freedom-of-information-act-or-privacy-act.
If you have not done so already, we recommend that you check NARA's Naturalization Records page for more information about the records at:
