The WPA Index of Naturalizations: An Explanation

The WPA Index of Naturalizations: An Explanation Jefferson M. Moak* rT1 HE CRYPTIC INITIALS C.C., C.P., D.C., Q.S., and S.C. form the basis of one of the most frequently used genealogical resources prepared by the Works Progress Administration (hereafter referred to as the WPA) in Philadelphia: the index to naturalizations in Philadelphia courts. Edited and republished as Philadelphia Naturalization Records by P. William Filby, this index has proved a boon to genealogists, professional and amateur.' However, many problems exist with this index. These problems occurred because of many factors: the refusal of one court to provide access to certain records, a decision by the chief editor and compiler of the WPA index to include several courts under one set of initials rather than under each court's individual moniker, and, as with any major indexing project, normal mistakes of indexing. The five sets of initials discussed in this article refer not just to five but to no less than ten separate courts in Philadelphia. Actually, in certain circumstances, the initials C.P. can refer to hundreds of courts within the United States. The naturalization process in the United States was generally a two-step procedure. First, an individual could make a declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the United States. The declaration could be made at any time after reaching United States soil and in any court which chose to accept declarations. The second step was the petition to become a citizen of the United States. During the nineteenth century, this also could be made in any *Editor's Note: The author is an archivist at the City Archives of Philadelphia. Author of Philadelphia Mapmakers (1976) and compiler of Atlases of Pennsylvania: A Preliminary Checklist of County, City and Subject Atlases of Pennsylvania (1976), he is also associate editor of the forthcoming Centennial Register of the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution. Tabular material appearing in this article was prepared for publication by William A. Segraves. 109 110 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine court which chose to conduct naturalization proceedings. A minimum of five years in the United States had to pass in order for an individual to petition for citizenship. A minimum of two years had to pass between the declaration of intent and the petition. Generally, the individual also had to be a resident of Pennsylvania for one year before making this petition. The aspiring citizen did not have to return to the same court for both steps. If he made his declaration in the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia, he was not obligated to return to the Common Pleas Court to file his petition. The petition could be filed in the Philadelphia County District Court, the Quarter Sessions Court, the United States District Court, or any other court in the United States, provided that that court held naturalization proceedings. He was given a copy of his declaration, which he carried with him, and when he petitioned for citizenship, he surrendered it to the clerk of that particular court. The use of the male pronoun in the above paragraph is deliberate. Of approximately 100,000 naturalizations contained within the papers of the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, Philadelphia County District Court, Philadelphia Quarter Sessions Court, and other city and county courts, only a mere handful, approximately two dozen, concerned the naturalization of women. Since women did not have the right to vote, women were neither required nor encouraged to undergo the naturalization procedure. Indeed, even the forms used by the various courts contained the pronoun "he" which would have to be physically altered if the naturalization or declaration was for a woman. After women achieved the right to vote in 1920, naturalization procedures were changed to include women since the electoral and naturalization processes are closely allied. There are two exceptions to the two-step procedure. The first, and most common, is when a person arrived in the United States under the age of 18. Under then-current law, he was considered a minor. All that was necessary was for this person to wait the minimum five years and then petition for citizenship. Many of the entries in the WPA carry the words "minor" after them. This does not mean that the individuals concerned were minors at the dates listed for them. It means that they were minors when they arrived in the United States. The second exception occurred during and after the Civil War. WPA Index of Naturalizations 111 Men who fought in the Union forces during that conflict were exempt from having to make a declaration of their intention to become a citizen, their service effectively declaring this intention for them. The entries given in the WPA index can be either single or double entries. Depending upon the court, the single entry can mean either the declaration of intention or the petition for citizenship. The double entries give both the dates of declaration and petition. However, the initials given for the declaration in these double entries often refer to another court than that given for the initials in the key. Not all of the courts' indices reflected the dates and courts of the petitioners' declarations of intention. The Common Pleas Court, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and the United States District Court are three of those which did. The Philadelphia County District Court did not. Example 1 illustrates the problem with these double entries. Example 1 Michael Gallagher C.P. Aug. 27, 1856 Apr. 23, 18602 One would assume by the key that both the declaration and petition were made in the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia. One would be wrong. The declaration was made in 1856 in the Common Pleas Court of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the petition in the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia. Probably as many as 30 percent of the declarations marked as C.P. in the index refer to courts from Maine to California. Similiar problems occur with the entries of Example 2. Example 2 Samuel Gallagher D.C. Oct. 8, 1850 C.P. Sept. 13, 18563 John Gormley D.C. Oct. 6, 1854 C.P. May 3, 18604 12 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine According to the key, D.C. means United States District Court in Philadelphia. Actually, Samuel Gallagher made his declaration in the Philadelphia County District Court and John Gormley in the United States District Court of Delaware. In other words, ignore the key for the first line of a double entry. The WPA compilers were allowed access to the indices and papers of all of the courts except for those possessed by the Clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions. He did allow the compilers to index the dockets of declarations of intent. Table I shows the courts, with their respective papers, included in the WPA index. Table 1 Name of Court Declarations Petitions C.C. C.P. D.C. O.S. S.C. The initials given in this chart are explained below along with the dates covered by the various records: C.C. United States Circuit Court, 1795-1880 C.P. Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia, 1793-1880 Philadelphia County District Court, 1811-1874 The Common Pleas Court is one of the oldest courts in Philadelphia. it began naturalizations in 1793 shortly after the passage of the first naturalization act. In 1811 the Philadelphia County District Court was created to ease the burdens of the Common Pleas Court. The two, with separate court systems, co-existed in Philadelphia until 1875 when they were merged into the present Common Pleas Court system. WPA Index of Naturalizations 113 There exists one method by which most C.P. entries in the WPA can be identified as Common Pleas Court or District Court. Generally double entries or single entries with the term minor are those of the Common Pleas Court. Most of the others are District Court. D.C. United States District Court, 1795-4 880 Philadelphia County District Court, 1811-1874 Why is the Philadelphia County District Court, just explained under C.P., again listed, with the United States District Court, under D.C.? Because one of the compilers forgot that all county district court entries were supposed to be indexed as C.P. A large part of the index marked "1860-1874" was inadvertently indexed as D.C. Again, as explained above, the Philadelphia County District Court entries are primarily single entries; those of the United States District Court are double entries. Q.S. Quarter Sessions Court, 1802-1881 Criminal Sessions Court, 1838-1840 General Sessions Court, 184Q-1843 Mayor's Court, 1814-1838 Recorder's Court, 1836-1838 The records of these five courts were under the jurisdiction of the Clerk of the Quarter. Sessions Court in the late 1934s. The Clerk refused admittance to the actual petitions but allowed perusal of the declaration dockets. Actually, all of the declaration dockets from 1810 to 1881 had been indexed together in two manuscript index volumes regardless of the original court. Owing to a peculiar habit in the Quarter Sessions Court before 1854, not only do the declarations include all of those required to make one, they also include all of the minors who arrived at the court seeking citizenship. Apparently, the clerks of this court failed to 1 14 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine inquire of a person's status until they produced a declaration or signed the declaration docket. S.C. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern Division, 1794 1824, 1842-1868 The Supreme Court was one of the first courts to stop processing petitions for citizenship. This occurred in 1868. It did continue accepting declarations of intention for quite some time afterwards. Table 2 recaps the records contained in the WPA index. Table 2 C.C. United States Circuit Court C.P. Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Philadelphia County District Court D.C. United States District Court Philadelphia County District Court Q.S. Criminal Sessions Court General Sessions Court Mayor's Court Quarter Sessions Court Recorder's Court S.C. Supreme Court Of Pennsylvania Petitions Petitions Petitions Petitions Petitions Declarations Declarations Declarations Declarations Declarations Petitions A note about past, present, and future indexing projects: One cannot assume that the WPA index is a comprehensive index of all naturalizations in Philadelphia between the years 1793 and 1880. Actually, as demonstrated above, fully one-half of the records are not included in this index. These are the omissions: 1. The petitions after Ca. 1830 of the Quarter Sessions Court. 2. The declarations of all courts except those covered by the Quarter Sessions Court. 3. The declarations filed with the petitions of the Philadelphia County District Court and true identification of the declarations filed in the other courts. WPA Index of Naturalizations 115 The City Archives of Philadelphia has worked since 1984 to remedy the first omission. Not only has a computer index been assembled for the petitions of the Quarter Sessions Court, separate card indexes for the Mayor's Court and the Recorder's Court have been prepared. Shortly, after restoration of the petitions between 1838 and 1843, indices will be available for the papers of the General and Criminal Sessions Courts. The author has been working part-time on solving individual pieces of both the second and third enumerated items. There are nine volumes of declarations for the Philadelphia County District Court. Four of these have been computer-indexed, and two more have been hand-indexed and are awaiting computer entry. Work has started on the seventh volume. It is estimated that in excess of 12,500 names are included in these nine volumes. A second index was started in late 1987 to replace the existing index of the Common Pleas Court for the years 1854-1862. This index, which gives name, court and date of declaration, court and date of petition, and country of origin, was completed in mid-1988. It is being expanded to include the years 1850-1853. Eventually, as time permits, future expansions are planned. Yet a third index, still in preliminary stages, is planned to reindex the petitions of the Philadelphia County District Court during the period 1850-1874 in the same format as that of the aforementioned computer index of the Common Pleas Court. Table 3 updates Tables 1 and 2, giving the present status of all indexing efforts. Table 3 Name of Court Declarations U.S. Circuit Court Common Pleas Court Criminal Sessions Court WPA (as Q.S.) District Court J.M. Moak (in progress) U.S. District Court General Sessions Court WPA (as Q.S.) Mayor's Court WPA (as Q.S.) Quarter Sessions Court WPA (as OS.) WPA (as 0.5.) Recorder's Court Supreme Court of Penna. Petitions WPA (as C.C.) WPA (as C.P.) J.M. Moak (1850-1862) Archives (proposed) WPA (as C.P., with exceptions) WPA (as D.C.) Archives (proposed) Archives Archives Archives WPA (as S.C.) 16 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Notes 1. A copy of the original WPA "Index to Records of Aliens' Declarations of Intention and/or Oaths of Allegiance: 1789-1880," 11 vols., WPA Project No. 20837, is available for consultation at the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. 2. WPA "Index," 4:19. 3. Ibid., 4:23. 4. Ibid., 4:143.