Form G-1041 is used to request a search of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services historical databases. Requests based on Form G-1041 are used to determine whether any USCIS records exist on the subject, and if such records exists, the identity of the file number or other identifier of the available records.

Form G-1041 should be used by anyone who is: researching records of ancestry for genealogical or family history purposes; a historian or social scientist researching historical records of persons who can be identified by name, date or birth and place of birth; or a researcher involved in the location of heirs.

For records of naturalization prior to September 27, 1906, Form G-1041 should not be used. Neither should Form G-1041 be used to research historical databases for sea, land or air passenger manifest lists recording arrivals prior to December 1982.

The required information for a Form G-1041 index search are: the immigrant's full name; any alias names or name spelling variants; immigrant's date of birth; and country or place of birth. Other data that is considered helpful for a thorough index search pursuant to Form G-1041 are: date of immigrant's arrival into the United States; any address of the immigrant in the United States; a death certificate, obituaries, church records, U.S. Social Security Death Index records, records relating to the payment of death benefits, other records showing the immigrant subject to Form G-1041 is deceased. Copies, not originals, of these documents should be sent with the Form G-1041 request.