October 14, 2017 10:00 am - 12:30 pm Lecture Hall, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh
The Aliens are Coming: USCIS Record Sets
A-Files? AR-2 Forms? C-Files? O my! Join Rich Venezia as he wades through the alphabet soup of the record sets the US Citizenship and Immigration Services holds to find where your immigrant ancestor may be hiding. In addition to handling current immigration into the USA, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) holds indispensable genealogical records for anyone with post-1900 immigrant ancestors. This lecture explores a bit about how USCIS came to be, but more importantly, the valuable records it holds. Participants will learn who is likely to show up in which USCIS file set, how the index searching and ordering process works, and see examples of each record set held by USCIS. The files that will be discussed:
- A-Files (Alien Files) (including which files are held at NARA and which are held by USCIS)
- AR-2s (Alien Registration Forms)
- C-Files (Naturalization Certificate Files)
- Registry Files
- Visa Files
Rich Venezia is a veteran of both Genealogy Roadshow’s research team and TEDx Pittsburgh (2017). He lives in Pittsburgh and specializes in twentieth-century immigration research.
Free and open to the public. Doors open at 9:30 a.m.
