From Ellis Island to the Department of Homeland Security, our history is the history of United States immigration and nationality law and policy. This section explores the roots of the nation’s legal immigration system and the immigrant roots of your own family.
Highlights From The Library Collection: "New Year in America", painting by Lois Johnson shows children in Hmong costumes. Lois Johnson's original oil painting... Read more about it.
Researching Deportation Records: The notebook answers a question about locating historical deportation or exclusion records. This question usually follows discovery of a passenger list record or List of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry showing an immigrant excluded and returned, or comes from a family story of a relative deported many years ago. . Read more about it!
Quick Guide to finding INS Case and Correspondence Files Related to Specific Individuals: The vast collection of historical Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) subject, policy and correspondence files now stored as Entry 9 of Record Group 85 at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C. includes thousands of files related to all aspects of immigration policy during the years 1906-1956. Read more about it!
User-Friendly Web Addresses
The History and Genealogy Program at USCIS strives to provide you the best service and experience. With that in mind we created friendly URLs to make access to our website quicker and easier. These are the pages and friendly URLs available now:
Genealogy Notebook
Research Guidance
