Rhode Island Naturalization
On some pages there are an affiadavit of witnesses and oath of Allegiance on the same page for the same person. Does this image have two records to index or only one?
Best Answer
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The Oath of Allegiance will always be the only thing you will index when the OOA and the Affidavit of Witness section share the same page. The AOW is actually part of the Petition for Naturalization/Petition for Citizenship and older PETs (pre-1940) had everything on one page, with the OOA on a second page. 1941 was the first year (that I've seen, at least) where the OOA and the AOW section share the same page.
It is always important to read the Project Instructions, even down to the General Indexing Guidelines. PIs can answer 97% of problems (we'll help even if you think your question is stupid). They can be accessed by the last icon on the toolbar or by clicking this link in either the Images or Entries screen in your batch.
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Answers
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You only index the oath of allegiance. The project instructions say, "For petitions for naturalization or petitions for citizenship that have a date recorded only in the affidavit of witnesses section, type that date in the appropriate fields for the same person. Do not include any other information from affidavits of witnesses. Project Instructions can be found on the toolbar under this icon:
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Yes the instructions are important but I find that they often do not answer all questions.
The instructions surrounding my question even included an example image of the oath of allegiance and affidavit appearing on the same page with the following instructions: "...petitions for citizenship that have a date recorded only in the affidavit of witnesses section, type that date in the appropriate fields". However the image used for illustration had dates in both the Affidavit as well as the Oath, yet the image illustrated selecting the date in the affidavit while not highliting the date in the Oath. Seems contradictory to me? Use the Affidavit date or the Oath Date?
And my question was really was, "Is the Affidavit a record seperate from the Oath"? The answer is no - the affidavit is part of the Oath. But the Affidavit may have information the Oath does not.
Instructions are crystal clear unless.....
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The instructions surrounding my question even included an example image of the oath of allegiance and affidavit appearing on the same page with the following instructions: "...petitions for citizenship that have a date recorded only in the affidavit of witnesses section, type that date in the appropriate fields".
This section does not reference the Oath of Allegiance at all. The affidavit of witnesses has the date we use for the Petition for Citizenship--I guess that those records were filled out in the same day. Therefore, while we do index the date from the Affidavit of Witnesses, that is only done in order to get the date of the Petition for Citizenship, which is not the same thing as indexing the Affidavit.
And my question was really was, "Is the Affidavit a record separate from the Oath"? The answer is no - the affidavit is part of the Oath. But the Affidavit may have information the Oath does not.
The Oath of Allegiance is on the same paper but was not given on the same day. Even if they were on the same day, they record two very different things. Therefore, the answer is actually yes - the Affidavit is separate from the Oath.
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