Ancestry Island: August Ernest Buchholz Filed First Papers, But Which One Is He?

How Ernest August Buchholz is related to my husband.

His daughter Dora was born in Elgin, Kane County in 1890, and another daughter Ida was born in McHenry County in 1893, so by the 1900 Census they had likely been living in McHenry for at least 7 years.

Squint and you can see the "pa" notation under the Citizen/Naturalization column, which means "first papers". 1900 U.S. Census, McHenry County, Illinois, population schedule, McHenry village, enumeration district (ED) 160 p. 2B, dwelling 49, family 50; August Buchholz; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 February 2016); citing NARA microfilm publication T623, roll ? [there are 1854 rolls].

Ernest August Buchholz (1855-??) is my husband's 2nd great grandfather through his daughter Dora Louise Buchholz (1890-1969).

So far, we don't know where in Germany he and his wife M Louise Malchow (1862-??) came from. On their 1900 Census they both had 1888 as the year they migrated (I will show in a later post the two separate journeys, from Hamburg to New York, that I think they took to get here), and as you can see above, August had filed his "first papers." I did not look for his wife's papers, as I don't think wives had to file separately for naturalization until the early 1920's.

I am assuming this means he had not completed his naturalization process when the 1900 Census was taken, so whatever preliminary paperwork he had done was incomplete. Using the scanned microfilm publican NARA M1285 ("Soundex Index to Naturalization Petitions for the United States District and Circuit Courts, Northern District of Illinois, and Immigration and Naturalization Service District 9, 1840-1950) on FamilySearch, I found four possible August Buchholz's who might be my guy: