10.3 Asking Questions of the Records

Immigration and emigration records are exciting to explore and discover, but this research can also be challenging. Whenever a researcher begins looking for a new type of record or runs into problems identifying documents during a genealogy project, a helpful exercise is to ask the following questions: Who? What? Where? When? How? Why? These questions can apply to any record type or event during the project. If there is an event, like a birth, the researcher strives to answer each of these questions for that particular event, gaining a solid understanding and the documentation to support the findings. Studying immigration and emigration records gives an opportunity to apply this method, prevents missing important details, and helps the family historian keep organized. Here are some of the ways these questions might apply to an emigration or immigration event:

Table 10.1

Who? What? Where? When? How? Why?

Question	Ways the question may apply to an immigration or emigration event
Who?	Who was traveling? Who did they leave behind? Who did they interact with along the way? Were they meeting someone they knew or were related to at the destination?
What?	What happened to make them emigrate? What was the desired outcome of the move? What visas or paperwork was required? What documents might exist? What did they take with them?
When?	When did they leave their place of origin? When did they leave or arrive in ports? When did they find their destination? How reliable are the sources for the dates?
Where?	How many places are documented for this journey? Are there others that could be looked at based on where they must have traveled? Where might records be stored?
How?	How did they pay their expenses? What were their modes of travel? How were they received? How did they cope with challenges? Can the researcher learn more by studying others taking the same trip?
Why?	Why that mode of travel? Why did they travel alone or with the group? Why didn't they do something that looks like an obvious choice?

Knowledge of places and what records are available for those places is an important key to success in researching the movement of people. Since laws and boundaries change, using the FamilySearch Wiki to become being familiar with what records exist in the place of origin and in the destination will save time. Realize that there may also be an extensive journey between the place of origin and the destination, and those places should be explored, as well. Also, keep in mind that a person who emigrated once may decide to do so again. This case study will help illustrate that point while providing hands-on research experience for these types of records.

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