Once you are pretty sure of your ancestor’s country of origin, you should try to find their hometown in that country. Knowing the country is good, but knowing the town is better. This is because once you know the town, you can research it to find out more about your ancestor’s life there, and to take your research further by researching generations before your immigrant ancestor. You can often go fairly far back in time once you find the town of origin for your ancestor in their native land. But, how do you find the town? You look at every record source you can find. Marriage records, death records, obituaries, county histories, and even old newspaper articles with human interest stories will often include the town of origin in a foreign country of a person in the United States. Keep examining your immigrant ancestor’s life in the United States by exploring all of their records here, and you will have a much greater chance of locating something that mentions their hometown overseas.
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