Q & A: Naturalization 1749

Subject: Q & A: Naturalization 1749 


QUESTION:

If a German immigrant arrived in America ....in Oct. 1749 
...would the family ever have been naturalized?

ANSWER:
 
NO. The first naturalization law was passed in March, 1790.
 This is the first law concerning naturalization as a *United 
States* citizen.  However, prior to the American Revolution 
there was no such entity as the United States, and foreigners 
settling in British North America were indeed naturalized, as 
*British* subjects.  The general principles of the law 
regulating natualizations in the English plantations
and colonies are set out in _Letters of Denization and Acts of
Naturalization of Aliens in England and Ireland, 1603-1700_, 
Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, 18 (1911), pp. 
xxvii-xxxii.
 Germans settling in the colonies were naturalized according to 
the Act 13 George II, c. 7 ("An Act for Naturalizing such 
foreign Protestants and others therein mentioned as are 
settled, or shall settle, in any of his Majesty's Colonies in 
America"). The returns sent from the colonies to the Lords
Commissioners for Trade and Plantations in pusuance of this act 
are published in M. S. Giuseppi, ed., _Naturalizations of 
Foreign Protestants in the American and West Indiana Colonies 
(Pursuant to Statute 13 Georg II, c. 7)_, Publications of the 
Huguenot Society of London, 24 (1921; reprinted Baltimore:  
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1964 and later).
 
 
Michael Palmer
mpalmer@netcom.com
October 22, 1995