The form I have been waiting for nearly a year to receive came in the mail yesterday. It’s Alice Miller’s Alien registration form.
That’s a long time to wait for a piece of paper.
A really long time.
Here’s what I was hoping to find on the record…
A specific area of Villinus, Lithuania she may have lived in, because that’s what the whole region is called. I hoped for a date she entered the United States, the boat she came on, and whether she came with family.
The reality of genealogy research isn’t like the neatly packaged segments on television programs like Who Do You Think You Are? Unless you are famous, or have the money to hire a professional genealogist, the search can be grueling to uncover the information you’re searching for about your ancestors.
I don’t want to discourage you from seeking.
Seek diligently.
I’ve had 2 AM moments with tears streaming down my face, because a volunteer in California uploaded Alice and Joe Miller’s headstones to FindaGrave.com. It gave me the information I needed to know their death dates, in addition to where they were buried. When I started, I didn’t have birth dates, death dates or final resting places.
Those powerful moments of knowing are the moments we like to focus on as family historians. They are the exciting moments of knowing when finally, something important is revealed.
I don’t really like puzzles, and I am not the most patient person, but I persist. I continue to seek and search.
Frustrating setbacks like ordering Joe Miller and Alice Miller’s death certificates once I had their death dates, and reading their parent’s names and places of birth listed as unknown.
Ummm, yeah.
That’s what I was hoping to know by ordering the death certificate.
It is hard not to throw my hands up in frustration, and want to quit searching, or move on to “easier” ancestors than my elusive Millers.
It can be challenging when that 1940 Alien registration record I’ve been waiting for finally comes, and it just complicates things by adding a third possible immigration year.
And it doesn’t have the name of the boat on which Alice Miller sailed to America.
And it says that she never filed first papers for naturalization, so 2 census records aren’t accurate.
Probably?
I still don’t have the answers I’ve been seeking, so I’ll continue to search for #AliceMiller.
Yes, I totally made a hashtag for my great great grandmother, and have been using it over the past year on Twitter.
I heard someone say at RootsTech last month not to look at genealogy research setbacks as a negative thing. So, I’m re-framing my narrative.
I’m one step closer to finding Alice Miller.
When I find her, I will appreciate finding her that much more.
Genealogy Jen’s Challenge of the Week- Who’s your brick wall ancestor? What have you done to find them?
Oh, I hate when you order the lynchpin record and it comes back missing the mission critical information. Here’s hoping this is the year #AliceMiller makes an appearance.
Darn it! I had the same experience when I ordered my great grandfather’s alien file. A scant four pages with not one new piece of info. Good luck! Hopefully this is your year.
Glad I’m not the only one this has happened to. I’m determined this is my year. Thanks!
Oh, I so love this old post just discovered today. Not that I’m happy about your brick wall, but I really identify. And if it helps empathize totally with the struggle. I’ve had more than one of these kind of elusive missing ancestors and what I’ll say is that I’ve solved more of them than are still unsolved after about 20 years of research. Some of the way they have found the light of day are:
1) Finding an oral history story referred to in a personal genealogy narrative on a different family that married into the one in question after I stumbled upon it in FamilySearch’s digital archives;
2) Having a random Facebook acquaintance in a South Carolina genealogy group build a data search tool for the legal holdings a library archive that randomly threw up a legal document that my 15 years of research there had never yielded; and
3) recurring DNA matches to a family I knew well from my research of a particular county but had no reason to know I had a connection to…until I did. They were the ancestors of my brick wall!
I could go on…but you get the message. Persist! They will find you! And if all else fails, light a candle and ask Alice Miller and her ancestors to help you find them. They will reveal themselves in their own time…
Thanks for the ideas Allison! So far, I’ve dug up as many records as possible. When I started, 8 years ago, I had no idea where or when Alice Miller died or was buried. It’s doubly difficult as she was an immigrant with not much education. I’ve DNA tested, every person I know related, triangulated, searched through trees for common surnames, and a bunch of other stuff. So far, I have 5 different names for her, 3 different immigration years, and no ship name. Her husband was an immigrant too, and I believe that he changed his names as well. Alice isn’t ready to be found yet. I’ve been negotiating with her for awhile. Hopefully, her heart will soften soon
It’s a good thing I’m persistent!