Need help in finding town of origin
I have an ancestor that I can't figure out what town of origin they are from. I understand there are gazetteers to help find towns of origin. But I've looked through their census records in the U.S. and it's conflicting. My grandfather Sylvester Eigenberger was born in 1909 and in the 1910 census says his parents were born in Russia. Now when I go to Sylvester's father's(Anton Eigenberger) census record in 1880 it says he was born in Austri. In 1900 it says Austria for both of Anton's parents. In 1910 it says Anton Eigenberger's parents were from Russia. And also in some of the census records show the language spoken Russian-German. Then in the 1885 Iowa census it says that the enumerator wrote Austria and crossed it off and wrote OC. I learned that it means other country. I know that borders change quite frequently over time. I was thinking that they were on the Austrian side,but since it says Russian German does that mean they came from the Hungary side and that's why I've been empty handed.
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@NathanEichenberger1 It may help you to read through the instructions to US Census enumerators. You can find those several places online. My favorite is https://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumInstr.shtml
In general, the instructions to enumerators were to use the name of the country at the time of the census. In other words, someone born in 1885 might be listed as born in Russia in one census, Hungary in another, and Czechoslovakia in another.
This is an excerpt from the 1920 instructions: "If a person says he was born in Austria, Germany, Russia, or Turkey as they were before the war, enter the name of the Province (State or Region) in which born, as Alsace-Lorraine, Bohemia, Bavaria, German or Russian Poland, Croatia, Galicia, Finland, Slovakland, etc.; or the name of the city or town in which born, as Berlin, Prague, Vienna, etc."
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@Áine Ní Donnghaile thank you for the information that helps a lot!
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Alternation between Russia and Austria is unlikely to involve Hungary, as Hungary did not share a border with Russia; it's more likely to be somewhere that's now Poland or perhaps Czechia. But in any case, the countries recorded on censuses aren't going to narrow things down the way you need. You need a specific town name. These are sometimes recorded on things like naturalization paperwork and arrival manifests. (It sounds like this ancestor is too early for things like draft registrations and Social Security applications.)
Wikipedia has a few useful maps of Austria-Hungary that can help make sense of things, for example this one with ethnicities: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg, this one with the 1920 borders overlaid (to help place things on a modern map): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Dissolution_of_Austria-Hungary.png, and this one labeled with all of the crown lands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary#/media/File:Austria-Hungary_map_new.svg.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi Thank you!
I do have a naturalization hint for my 2nd great-grandfather and it says that the certificate is in Vol. A pg 74, and the location of the court was in Dist Manchester,Delaware Co,Iowa. Country of birth was Austria. When born has an "X". Date and port of arrival also has an "X." Date of naturalization was Apr term 1864. First papers were taken out of Dubuque County, Iowa.
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@NathanEichenberger1 would you mind sharing a link to the naturalization record?
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@Maile L Here is the link from Ancestry https://search.ancestry.com/collections/1629/records/4019099
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