-
Re: How do I find immigration information on Japanese friend
Lisha PennMar 18, 2020 2:54 PM (in response to Allan Scaccia)
Dear Mr. Scaccia,
Thank you for posting your request on History Hub!
We suggest that you search NARA’s website for Immigrant Records at the National Archives, Japanese Americans, and genealogical research for tips on how to determine if the records you wish to access may be digitized in the National Archives Catalog or available on our partners’ websites. Ancestry and fold3 may have fees for accessing the records on their websites.
You also may wish to review Japan Emigration and Immigration Genealogy and Japan Cemeteries Genealogy for additional information and/or resources to determine where she may have resided in Japan.
We hope this is helpful. Best of luck with your research!
-
Re: How do I find immigration information on Japanese friend
Aaron SeltzerMar 18, 2020 6:07 PM (in response to Allan Scaccia)
Dear Mr. Scaccia,
If research using the above resources is ultimately unsuccessful, one other option would be to utilize US Citizenship and Immigration Services name index search service. https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/genealogy/searching-index
There will be a fee involved and if she was born less than 100 years ago you may need to provide evidence of death such as a copy of an obituary or the like to proceed with this. If through this source or other methods you can locate her naturalization documents and request them, those should have the information you are looking for.
If she never naturalized, in that case she should have an Alien File or "A-File" which is quite likely to have the desired information. If the A-File has not yet been transferred to the National Archives (which is why it would not show up in a catalog search) you should be able to request it from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (at least if you have sufficient evidence of her being deceased) although there may be another fee involved.