I’m still trying to figure out if my great grandfather became a citizen and when. The census records say yes, but they also say he didn’t speak English which is a requirement. I’m still trying to find his full name, as I have yet to locate the birth certificate. The county he was supposedly born in has no record, for him or his elder brother. I need to start requesting ones for the younger siblings, as they were born after Ohio started centralizing birth records.

My aunt, my father’s brother’s wife, has some records their aunt gave her many years ago. I have no idea what they might be but perhaps useful. I just have to wait until she returns from the annual southern migration to dig them up. After then I’ll likely get back to research.

I had a trial membership with ancestry.com and it was ok, but I cancelled it. I signed up for the deluxe international service to see what Italian records they have but there wasn’t anything useful. I may try again with just the US membership later. They do make it very easy to search census records, and many of the ones I need, from New York City, are digitized.