The real date for "Facts for Petition for Naturalization"
On the project, US, Pennsylvania, Western District—Naturalizations, 1820–1930 [Part A], the project instructions incorrectly say to use the date at the bottom of the first page of Facts for Petition for Naturalization. It is not the date for Facts for Petition for Naturalization. It is, instead, the date of the Declaration of Intent with its Record number. The date of the Facts for Petition for Naturalization is the same date at the Petition for Naturalization.
Also, at the bottom of the first page of Facts for Petition for Naturalization is "(over)" which refers to the 2nd page of that document, which is usually on a previous image, giving the wife and her date of birth.
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If this document and the Petition for Naturalization are for the same person, do not index the Facts. You will combine both documents and index the Petition For Naturalization only, using spousal information and record date found on the Petition For Naturalization.
If the Facts and Petition are for two different people, index the Facts as-is. There is an example on how to index Facts in the Project Instructions.
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Please note that the example in the Project Instructions on How to Index Facts for Petition for Naturalization is wrong because the date at the bottom of the page refers to a different document (Declaration of Intention). The date of the Facts for Petition for Naturalization should be indexed with the same date as the Petition for Naturalization because it was part of that document, not the Declaration of Intention, which was usually filled out a few years earlier. 😎
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The example is not wrong. The Naturalization does not have any information regarding a Petitioner, therefore you are assuming that the Naturalization is for Gabriele. It is not our job as indexers to assume, infer or to guess any information--in any project.
If the Facts and the Naturalization were both for Gabriele, which the example is not for, then both would be combined and the Naturalization Date would be the Record Date.
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On these naturalization projects, we generally record "the most recent date as it pertains to naturalization". Since the declaration date is the only date that pertains to naturalization on the Facts form, that is why the example shows to use it.
The petitioner on the example is Gabriele Cassetta. We probably won't be combining much information in this project since these are all 1 image per batch and we don't index any information found under the overlays. It seems to be rare that the Declaration, or Petition, or Facts, or Oaths are visible on the same image.
There is a problem with the back of the Facts being on the previous image. However, those should be indexed as a record for that image with only the name of the wife and the date of her birth. The instructions outline this with the following statement:
- If a record does not include a name for the primary person, you should still index the record, marking the primary name fields blank and indexing other names, such as the name of the spouse, along with any other fields that are present on the record.
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Sorry, please let me try one more time to explain why the date at the bottom of the Facts for Petition for Naturalization is not the date of the document. It is clearly labeled as the date of the Declaration of Intention.
By looking at the document images before and after it, including the Declaration of Intention and the Petition for Naturalization for the same person, the correct date is easily determined. This is not an assumption. The date at the bottom of the Facts for Petition for Naturalization points to the Declaration of Intention with the same person's name, vital info and date. The Declaration of Intention points to the Petition for Naturalization with the same person's name and vital info. The date of the Petition for Naturalization is usually 3 to 7 years after the date for the Declaration of Intention and should be used when it is provable.
In the following example the date at the bottom of the Facts for Petition for Naturalization is 5 years before the date of the Petition for Naturalization. It is also interesting to note that the date of the Facts for Petition for Naturalization is also hand written at the top edge of the page, "8-8-18", and should be 8 August 1918. That is just more evidence to prove the point, though I would not use the handwritten 8-8-18 by itself, if that were all I had for proof.
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I totally understood your concern that we are not recording the date that the facts document was produced or even received. I've been indexing and reviewing Naturalization records for many years and probably have added 5,000 or more of these records. Usually, they didn't even index the Facts documents. Since the the Facts document does not have a date that it was completed, they are asking the indexers to use the date of declaration. We also don't know what the handwritten date of 8/8/18 means other than that was the day it was received by the bureau,
I wouldn't worry much about this since the researcher who finds this document in a search will have access to the complete package on the film and they too will be able to reach the same conclusion that you have.
- The completed index and links to digital images will be freely accessible online to the general public when the collection is published.
The same thing happens with indexing of death and obituary information. When the date of death wasn't on a document, the project instructions and examples showed to index the most recent date (usually the date of publication of the obituary, or the date of the funeral services). One absolutely cannot trust the dates on these indexes without finding the original document. When I first started indexing 10 years ago, it was only then that I understood why the indexes for my relatives deaths were often off by a day or three days.
I see they have removed the project (1/13/23). Perhaps they are working on the instructions or examples.
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