Does anyone here have familiarity with Index search requests with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Genealogy Program? Before you even request records, you need to pay for an index search. I just submitted an index search and am wondering what their turnaround time is like. It seems that they were very backed up during Covid (up to about 9 months), but I am wondering (read:hoping) that they been catching up. Any recent experience?
https://genealogy.uscis.dhs.gov/#/
Also, A commenter from this 2017 thread https://www.italiangenealogy.com/forum/topic/40852) suggests that National Archives is quicker at processing naturalization records. Is that still the case? The National Archives says that All INS records are now overseen by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) (https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/naturalization). Does that mean that there is no longer any benefit of submitting to the national archives? There seems to be a downside in that the national archives was always limited to retrieving naturalization records.
FYI - I submitted a request from the USCIS Genealogy Program and got a letter a couple of days ago that they will be sending me the information via CD. Thirteen months to process my request! It's like the federal DMV!
