Did US cities like Chicago keep registers of “aliens” in the 1880's-1890's?

Question

Would there be any registers or lists of resident "aliens" in US city, county, state or federal records in the 1880's and 1890's? In other words, registers of those who are not US citizens, such as British or Canadians.

My particular interest is for Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. For other years there are of course censuses, but as the 1890 census was destroyed I'm wondering if there is anything which specifically mentions non-citizens that could help as a census substitute (other than street directories).

Answer 1

I realize you were inquiring about "aliens," but if they did qualified to vote in this period, you might check the Chicago Voter Registration Lists, 1888, 1890 and 1892.

Typical entries provide names, addresses, nativity, time of residence at the precinct, count and state; also whether naturalized (and date of papers). Even when they registered to vote; whether they voted and their ballot number.

The records span across two sheets (so one left sided page and one right sided page). A representative record from 1890 follows. I viewed those images via the indexed records on Ancestry.com, which cites Illinois State Archives microfilm. It appears these these records are available from FamilySearch on microfilm. See the FamilySearch film notes for possible limitations to the film indexing.

Apparently this collection represents twenty volumes of registrations found in the 1980s by an amateur genealogist. 1 The Newberry Library catalog reports that at one time this collection was "A complete alphabetical listing of every registered voter in Chicago for 1888, 1890 and 1892."

P.S. Michael John Neill has an article on this collection; he admits to "drooling" over these records.

1 Ancestry.com, "About Chicago, Illinois, Voter Registration, 1890."

Update: A few other thoughts:

• Newberry Library is a world-class facility. Their tag line is, "Chicago's Independent Research Library Since 1887." I've contacted them by phone and e-mail in the past. More information available at the related webpage, "Genealogy and Local History."
• Occupation. Not sure of the occupation(s) involved here, but you might see if there are union or trade archives.
• Newspapers. It may be just my experience (and I did have some local help), but I do have quite a few notices about illnesses; business relocations, etc., that have been helpful.

Answer 2

Look through the entire City Directory, and not just the alphabetical or numerical sections of the directory. In the New England directories published by the Price & Lee Co., there's often a section with City Information. Social organizations are listed in the back with their officers and meeting times. These will not list resident aliens per se, but if the resident aliens gathered in their own organizations, looking for people who are mentioned as members of the organization in newspaper searches can yield a great deal of information; some of it might fill in the gaps left by the loss of the 1890 Census. The indexing can be very strange because the names are not presented in the same fashion as the rest of the directory, so it's better to browse the pages directly.

See this list of fraternal organizations on Wikipedia for examples. There is a Canada link on that page; if people were members in Canada, they might join the local group once they reached Chicago, or start one if one didn't exist already. Fraternal brothers often show up as bearers and can be discovered by newspaper accounts of funerals. Work backwards from later records and you might be able to reach the 1890s that way. Church newsletters may also mention the movement of members, as well as newspapers.

Newspapers sometimes have lists of names, including registered voters. I've seen lists of people who had letters waiting for them at the Post Office, property transfers, court calendars, and probate-related advertisements that could be clues to other records. and other residence information.

These pages on Olive Tree Genealogy may not be directly useful, but in case they are of interest: Lists Of Stockholders Canada & USA 1890 and Canadian Passport Records. This one is the wrong period, but perhaps you could find similar records which are from the 1890s? Names of Emigrants from the 1845-1847 Records of James Allison, Emigrant Agent at Montreal

I've also found city registers on Google Books which list official city business. They might give statistics on the number of resident aliens, and there might be clues to actual lists, e.g. the name of the department in the city which produced the statistics.