Happy 4th of July! Great-grandpa Karl's Choice to Become an American

Happy 4th of July, everyone. I thought today would be a good day to remember my great-grandfather Karl Larson and his choice to become an American citizen. Thanks to a genealogy website and help from a cousin, I was able to obtain two documents that shed some light on Karl becoming a citizen. As I have written before, Karl immigrated from Sweden to the U.S. to work as a carpenter for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Skagway, eventually marrying my great-grandmother Edith Feero. So, without further ado, let's look at these cool documents. First up is his Declaration of Intention.

Karl Larson's Declaration of Intention (to become a U.S. citizen).

As you can see on the form which was filed sometime in 1914, it states where he came from originally, what looks like Ingertorp, Sweden. I tried to research this place on the Internet but could only come up with Ingatorp. It's possible the spelling of this place in English has changed over time. Another interesting fact this form reveals is the ship that he used to make the Atlantic voyage to New York, the Campania. Amazing, I was able to find this ship online and read about its interesting past as well. 

The ship that brought great-grandpa Karl to America, the RMS Campania.

The Campania was quite a ship in her time apparently. Built in Liverpool in 1892, the ship was the largest and fastest passenger in service at the time. (For more info) 

More details on the RMS Campania.

Getting back to Karl and his journey to become a citizen, another thing I found interesting was the fact that he had to sign to pledge that he was "not an anarchist" and that he was "not a polygamist nor a believer in the practice polygamy." The latter pledge probably had to do with the fact that polygamy was practiced by 20 to 30 percent of Mormons in the mid to late 1800s and that this was a sticking point in preventing Utah from achieving statehood at the time. (More info here)

After declaring his intentions, it would take Karl seven more years to finally become a citizen. On December 19th, 1921, Karl was issued this beautiful Certificate of Naturalization (below) and granted citizenship. (Many thanks to cousin Jennifer for sending this to me)

The paper that granted Karl Larson citizenship to the United States.

I love old documents, especially those with some handwriting, and this does not disappoint. I was first struck by how much it looks like a U.S. dollar bill by design with the same engraving and font choices as the U.S. currency. Looking at the written portion of the document also raised some interesting points. Karl's hair color is listed as "light" (is that a color?). For some reason, his wife Edith's name was written incorrectly (Ada?) and had to be corrected in pencil. It was great to see my grandmother Urania, a.ka. Rainy, on the form (only 10 years old!). Continuing to go down the form I also noted that mysteriously there is a question mark after "Territory of Alaska." Did they not know where they were at the time? Also, not surprisingly, poor Karl's name is once again misspelled with a C instead of a K (This happened far too often). The rest of the certificate is pretty standard (although it is interesting that he was a subject of the King of Sweden). So, on December 19th, 1921, the 146th year of the independence of the United States (interesting that they noted that at the bottom of the certificate), great-grandpa Karl became an American. Cue the fireworks!

Karl (with Edith), many years after becoming an American citizen.