Is the Petition for Citizenship, Affidavit of Witnesses, and Oath of Allegiance one two page form?
I have lots of questions.
It appears to me that when indexing the Eastern District State of New York Naturalization records that the Petition for Citizenship, Affidavit of Witnesses, and Oath of Allegiance are all contained on the same form even though the form filled out for a given applicant may run over into the next image that is found in the next batch. If so, it seems to me that it would have been better to scan the form onto one image within the same batch. Is it appropriate then to use the reference images tool to access data like dates and location from the preceding or subsequent image that pertains to the same individual even though image may be in a proceeding or subsequent batch? I understand that it is appropriate to enter the record number for the Petition for Naturalization into the record for the Declaration of Intention. Furthermore, is it appropriate to enter the record number found on the Petition for Citizenship into the record for the Oath of Allegiance for a given individual?
Is a Petition for Naturalization and Petition for Citizenship the same thing?
Answers
-
The scanned images have been like this since I can remember, and I've been here since 2015. They've probably been doing it longer than that. Folks like @Melissa S Himes have been here longer than I have.
You can access the reference images.
You do not index numbers on the Oath. The Oath is its own document where you index the applicant's name and date of admission only. There is an example of this in Project Instructions/What To Index.
Petition for Naturalization and Petition for Citizenship are two different documents and should be indexed as such.
0 -
I have the same question about dates as the project instructions show a date entered that is not on the image and the instruction is: Note: Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are shown on the adjacent image.
my only conclusion has been to go to the next image in the references and take the latest date there, usually from the Oath of Allegiance which is often many years later, which would be valuable information for a researcher
0 -
Yes, you will go to the next image, however, you will take the Affidavit of Witness date, not the Oath of Allegiance date. The OOA date goes with the OOA, which is separate from the Petition for Naturalization. There is an example of the Affidavit of Witness date in Project Instructions/What To Index/How to Index a Petition for Naturalization, 2 of 2.
1 -
Note: There is a big chance that I completely misunderstood the question here, it was hard for me to figure out.
As I understand it, you are only supposed to index the information on the image that it is giving you at the moment. If there is information not contained in the document, even if it is available from other images, it should be marked blank. There is a confusing rule in the instructions that tells you which record number to use when combining multiple documents, but it specifically states that they have to be multiple documents in the same image, so unless I am seriously misunderstanding something (Which, to be fair, is a possibility) only use the one image that you are indexing.
0 -
@BraydenGraves, it's a bit ...fuzzier than that.
The naturalization petitions and their auxiliary parts (the witnesses and oath) are too complicated: they're sort of the same record, but also sort of not. I'll therefore use the example that I'm most familiar with, which is the two-page marriage records in the Hungarian civil registrations. In the earliest format, the date, place, groom, his parents, bride, and her father were on the front of the page, and the bride's mother, the witnesses, and the signatures were on the back of the page. These were pages in a book, so in the films/scans, you see the back of one page (record) on the left, and the front of the next page (record) on the right. Indexing these records therefore always involves using the reference images for the bride's mother's name. No, that data is not on the image that's actually in your batch, but yes, you are supposed to index it.
Similarly, for the petitions, the front of the page doesn't have the date you're supposed to use. That's on the back of the page, in the witnesses section. They're individual sheets, so there's a chance that a two-image batch will contain both front and back of the same page, but there's about an equal chance that it won't. This makes no difference to the indexing of the petition: you get the names and stuff from the front of the piece of paper, and you get the date from back of the piece of paper, which is usually the next image.
0 -
@Julia Szent-Györgyi Interesting. I've heard of the multi-page indexes, but I've never encountered one myself. (Or maybe I did and just didn't notice? I hope that's not the case...) I think that it would have an exception in the rules specifically for that project, though, which I don't see for the New York Naturalizations. Am I missing something there? Or misinterpreting the rule I mentioned earlier?
0 -
With the PET, you will index the date that is in the Affidavit of Witness section, which is often located on the back of the PET. When a batch starts with the PET, you'll go to Image 2 and use the date that is included in the section that starts with Subscribed and sworn to me by the above named petitioner and witnesses. When a batch starts with the OOA, you will disregard this date--as it belongs to the previous batch--and use the OOA date. Older PET's (pre-1940-ish) have the Witness section on the same document and the date is on the very bottom.
0 -
There is an example of how to index the Record Date from the PET in Project Instructions/What To Index/How to Index a Petition for Naturalization, 2 of 2. This has been the case for as long as I can remember. Any date that is from "My lawful entry" on down, with the exception of a date that starts with Subscribed and sworn to me, which are usually on DEC's, is irrelevant.
0 -
Here are the dates from the front of my current PET.
The Affidavit of Witness date, which is on Image 2 is used as the Record Date.
0 -
@erutherford Okay, that makes sense.
0 -
The instruction about records spanning past your batch (https://prod.familysearch.psdops.com/cmsa/idx/what-to-do-when-records-span-2-images-or-to-view-additional-images) has been in the General Indexing Guidelines for every project I've ever worked on, and I'm pretty sure it was part of the system-wide instructions, back when we still had those. The way it is worded, it clearly assumes a format like some of the Italian and Spanish registers I've seen: each entry is a nice and verbose paragraph (the kind where you ask, "would it have killed these people to use actual ::gasp:: numerals?"), and there's no set length to it, so usually each image consists of the end of one entry, followed by three or four full entries, then the beginning of another entry. The instruction is basically that tail ends go with the previous batch, while front ends go with your current batch.
0 -
The "span two images" guidelines have always caused doubt. But, it really doesn't fit with Naturalizations because we index the Petition and we create another record for the Oaths. If we were considering it to be one record that spans two images, we wouldn't be doing two entries. We would be combining images and marking the others NED. So, that general indexing guideline can't be used for Nats.
Thanks for the shout-out @erutherford. You have provided the correct answers about using the the date of the affidavit of witnesses as the record date on Petitions, etc. (Good examples, with the NOPE on them!) I believe the field helps also tell us not to use the certificate number when indexing an oath. Field helps are accessed by clicking on the purple question mark that appears when we click on a field.
I don't think the question of whether a petition of naturalization and a petition of citizenship are the same has been answered. There are slight differences in the petitions and the reason each is filed. A petition for citizenship is filed when one of the birth parents is a US citizen. A US citizen born outside the US would apply using this petition too. A petition for naturalization is because they must go through the more intense naturalization process. For the purposes of indexing, there is no difference - it is part of the soul's journey.
I believe because the process can be time-consuming, the people who digitize these probably don't have the time to put them on the same image. I've even seen collections where they digitized the right hand pages of a book and then flipped it over and did the left hand pages. So sometimes a record might be widely separated in a collection; Like Image 1 could be the front of a document and Image 301 could be the back of the document.
0 -
YEAH!!!
As of yesterday, they have updated the instructions and the examples regarding the date to index. The pop-up refers to this and then the person has to click on the project instructions.
Recent Updates (dated 5 Sep 2023):
The instructions have been updated regarding indexing the date from the affidavit of witnesses.
Now, how many will people read the pop-up or check out the updates? *sigh*
0 -
The "span two images" instruction does apply to petitions and oaths.
If you get a batch that starts with the front of a petition, then you index two entries for the same person (his petition and his oath). In such cases, the batch of two images contains two full entries, with nothing hanging over onto adjacent images, and you don't need the instruction or the reference images tool.
If you get a batch that starts with the back of a petition (i.e., the witnesses), then you still index two entries, but they're for different people: the oath for one and the petition for the next. In this case, the witnesses are a tail end, while the oath below them is considered the "first full entry" of the batch. The petition (for the next person) is the second entry of the batch; it's not complete (because the date is on the next image), but since it begins in your batch, it's your job to index it. That person's oath, on the other hand, is not your job: it does not begin in your batch.
You can, of course, also use the preceding reference images to help decipher the signature on an oath. I'd put that on par with going to the January entries in a register to figure out the year, or looking for other examples of the person's capital P versus G (or S versus L, or H versus K versus R, or ...).
0 -
@Melissa S Himes I actually saw that pop-up but the example is the same. It does give priority to when to use the dates. But again, it's looking on the adjacent image on the affidavit of witnesses that some people are confused with. I think it's pretty straight forward....
Thanks for all your help!
0 -
I think the change is more for beginner indexers that are using the date(s) on the front of the PET as the Record Date. It's the unfortunate result of folks not reading the PI, but even with the change, I still see people who either use the date on the front or leave the Record Date blank.
0 -
@Julia Szent-Györgyi I respectfully disagree that the "span two images rule" applies. When the petition is in your batch, you only look at the next batch to get the date from the Affidavit of Witnesses. It is the responsibility of the person who gets the Oath as their first image to index it. If people follow the "span two images rule", the Oath would not get indexed since people would consider it to have been part of the last batch. "If the first record on an image begins on a previous image, don't index it. The record will be indexed as part of the previous batch. Start indexing at the first complete record."
We don't use the next image to combine the Petitions and the Oaths into one record in this collection. When we had projects that had the information on the SAME image, then we did have an instruction to combine the information. This was done when the declaration and the front of the petition were on the same image. The Oath was then indexed on a separate image. In the case of this NY collection, each image is treated individually: "Examine each image carefully to ensure that all required information is indexed."
I think we are saying the same thing regarding the indexing of this one image per batch collection, it is just that the general indexing guideline doesn't apply.
0
