CASTLE GARDEN UPDATE : NATIONAL ARCHIVES CASTLE GARDEN COLLECTION BEING DIGITALIZED

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE : CASTLE GARDEN   This Castle Garden information page tells us what the new immigrant saw and went through as they arrived in New York Harbor before the Ellis Island facility was set up. Castle Garden opened in 1855 and was used until 1890 - or so.

In the past I had a link to a Castle Garden search page, which I've personally used for my own research. (Ancestors who came on first and second class tickets did not go through Ellis Island.) However, that page no longer exists and has been taken down from my sidebar.

The NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES is planning digitalization of those records: NATIONAL ARCHIVES CASTLE GARDEN COLLECTION

public domain image

Publisher Charles Magnus

In the meantime, you can find records for all classes of passengers on ships coming into New York harbor on genealogy databases under topics such as New York Passenger Lists.

JEWISH ASHKENAZIM GENEALOGY : NAME CHANGES and OTHER UNIQUE CHALLENGES

Jews have come to America since Colonial Times but in general most of those from Europe came during the Industrial Revolution from Central and Eastern Europe, that Great Immigration period from about 1880 - 1920.  So for American Jews, the genealogy research starts with American records as it would for any other American.

Because of intermarriage between Jews and Christians there are Americans today who might not identify as Jewish or who acknowledge a Jewish ancestor - with many rumors of Jewishness as well - who do Holocaust Genealogy.

There are some special considerations in Jewish genealogy that make it a bit more difficult and that is dealing with Hebrew alphabet and translation, Yiddish language,  naming conventions, and informal name changes.

I've stated it elsewhere on this blog but that officials at Ellis Island changed the names of immigrants coming through is a myth. They had no authority to do that and were also dealing with hundreds of incoming every time a steamship came into the port in New York. It's likely that sometimes an immigrant's name was written down phonetically but that's not the same as an authority changing a person's name.

However Jewish immigrants DID sometimes change their names, sometimes to a German version from a Polish or Russian one - since German Jews had an easier time of assimilation, sometimes to an English or American name, sometimes to make the name easier to spell or pronounce. These name changes were rarely done formally and legally.  In many cases people were known by their Hebrew or Polish or other ethnic surname as well as their new name.

My suggestion is to do the usual genealogy research and perhaps on a marriage or a draft registration or other document the name change will be revealed.  Find the marriage record kept at the temple, not just the civil one. Have tombstones translated and get the cemetery record as well as the death record. Remember that if something comes right up on a database that's a blessing but books, microfilms, newspapers, and writing to archives may still be necessary. 

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

IN EUROPE THEY WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO LEFT FOR AMERICAN LONG AGO

Well, this probably isn't exclusive to European's who came to America, it's probably true all around the world that there are those who wonder what ever happened to their ancestors or related family who left their home countries. 

But I will admit to you that when I read about this on a Polish genealogy chat, I realized I HAD NOT THOUGHT ABOUT THAT.  I suppose it's because American finding their roots in other countries have that mind set, a roots mindset.

I read so much about the goodbye rituals that took place in various cultures.

Irish villagers all seeing a person off, who once out of sight, they turned their backs on, knowing they would probably never see that person again...

Women who would take a ball of yarn and give one end to the person on land, board the ship, hold it as it unraveled - the yarn then left to blow in the wind.

40% of all Americans who have an ancestor who came through Ellis Island have an ancestor who probably could never afford to go back to the country of their birth, or historical circumstances made it dangerous or impossible.

As I do my personal research, I realize that I am DNA related to people with dozens of surnames, quite possibly the whole town over hundreds of years.  Yet, because a few generations have gone by, it just never occurred to me that someone from that town might want to use genealogy to connect with me...

WERE THEY AS POOR AS YOU THINK? #10

I love the genealogy series Finding Your Roots. I recently binge watched it. But while it's just stating facts when someone, even Henry Louis Gates, Jr. says it, I tend to question how poor someone was when I hear that a laborer came over with only $6. because that's what's recorded on a ship manifest/ passenger list. We start to think $6 will buy us a burger and fries instead of the value back in the day.

That's the amount declared. Noone was going through his socks or shoes or money belt or that secret compartment in his one suitcase. Or in her undies or babies' diaper. I'm sure lots of things were kept safe by being sewn in to clothing.

I know how we think of steerage passengers. Early films and photos don't tend to depict thin gentleman in suits strolling along with their luggage being transported by a worker. They show fat women with scarved heads, their worldly possessions all bundled up in sheets. The motion of the film suggests they move awkwardly (you would too carrying a heirloom carpet on your back) and as quickly as possible (Gotta get that train to Pittsburgh.) It doesn't help that the words on the Statue of Liberty suggest she's a beacon for the bedraggled. But am I to believe the ignorant were stupid? How it is then that so many of the descendants of these passengers have made their way through college, into professions, and some have earned PhDs? Three or more generations in America makes a difference but so does inherited genius.

No doubt third class tickets/ steerage and poverty tended to go hand in hand. But sometimes it's just that a person was cheap or wanted to spend less on a ticket and have more in the pocket.

It's also true that the tickets were often purchased by family already in America and striding those fabled streets of gold while breaking their backs in mines and factories. Men first, wives later.

There is only one thing to do in order to better wrap your mind around just how much money a person brought with them on the ship that they declared. Use an online inflation calculator that turns that $6 in 1901 into 2021 U.S. Dollars. (The U.S. Department of Labor has one.)

Ok, it's not perfect in predicting value because prices fluctuate but it's the best.

Ever wonder who figured out what the dollar value was when the immigrant had left with Italian, German, or Austrian money? When and where would he convert that into American dollars? 

According to one such online calculator $6 in 1901 is about $184 dollars today.

Let's do another example. $25 in 1914 is $650 today.

Another. $65 in 1921. $945 today.

You get the idea. 

The inflation calculator is so useful.

Using census information you can calculate rent, mortgage, home value, and get a better idea about your ancestors money. If your Ellis Island ancestor goes to a house that he owns or pays a high rent on, what does that tell you?

I'm going to go on a little about the cost of tickets here too.

You may want to look over a short paper online that was presented in 2012 at a gathering of the Economic History Association in Vancouver by Brandon DuPont, Drew Keeling, and Thomas Weiss. Its called Passenger Fairs For Overseas Travel In The 19th and 20th Centuries.

The report mentions that advertisements for fares didn't give particulars - the company might actually quote higher or lower. Fares varied by direction - West higher, luxury of design and location of cabin space (ocean view or inside with none) speed of the ship, and other factors. Some ships converted cabins into third class to profit by quantity. A head tax on incoming passengers generally made west travel on the Atlantic a bit more expensive than east. (Where are the outgoing passenger lists for New York?)

There were four major carriers, CUNARD line generally most expensive. Cunard's star attractions and most expensive travel being the three sister ships - the Lusitania (which got torpedoed and sunk), Mauritania (called The Grand Old Lady), and the Aquitania. 

Holland-America, and North German Lloyd line were two others in The Big Four.

I learned about another line I hadn't known about called Anchor. It was the least expensive. You might think of it as a steamship equivalent of Jet Blue. 

The authors of this paper do a lot of statistics but overall they play with the discrepancy between advertised prices and profits. 

So let's use that inflation calculator on some suggested fares from that report and see just how expensive ocean travel was in 1908.

$151 on The Grand Old Lady going east is $4275. Highest fare. (We can assume people of wealth paid that ticket price.)

Cheapest first class on that ship was $121. $3425 today.

Cheapest ticket on that ship was $54. Now $1528. (I assume steerage.)

Holland America average fare using all ticket classes $141. $3992.

Holland America cheapest ticket west was $41. $1160. 

North German Lloyd cheapest ticket was $70 west. $1981. (If your ancestors left a German port there's a good chance they took this line.)

Anchor cheapest ticket was $62 west. $1755.

I think it's fair to say that a typical Passenger in steerage,  scarf, carpet, and all began their trip to America with a personal net worth of more than many an American today who gets government EBT / Food assistance. They were better off than our homeless.

(I look forward to learning if the companies charged less for children and babies.)

C 2021 

This post is part of a series that focuses on Ellis Island immigrants.

STEAMSHIPS and LINES - WHO WAS THE CAPTAIN? #8

Since you'll want to include some rich details to your family immigration story and it's so easy to do now with databases and Internet sites offering pictures for personal use, you can include information about the ship and shipping line and the ports your ancestor encountered. Was the ship one of the largest? What was the décor like? You might find books published that feature photos of the interior. There's lots available about the various shipping lines, such as White Star.

Go to the beginning of the ship manifest for the voyage your ancestor was on and you'll see that it begins with the name of the captain and surgeon and crew. What nationality do their surnames suggest ?

Then first and second class passengers are listed. Do any of the passengers sound familiar to you? You might want to include details such as how many passengers were on the ship and how many were in steerage. 

I notice that the steerage passengers often seem to be listed by ethnicity or origin.

You want to go to the beginning of the manifest as well to get the port of departure and date it left. Did it stop in Southhampton, England? Did it sail the Mediterranean before heading across the Atlantic?

As a side note the Queen Mary is available for touring as it is an attraction in Long Beach, Los Angeles, California. I took the tour and the ship was emptied out to be a pitch black empty space below the waterline where the engines and cargo would have been. It was so much smaller than today's ships, which are like cities on the ocean. Scenes from the novel Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Woulk, which came out in the 1950's, take place on the Queen Mary. It's one of my favorite books. I wanted to see the swimming pool, which was described in a scene in the book. It was a surprisingly small tiled square. I could imagine the water in it following the movement of the ship but not the scene depicted in the book of swimmers using the tiled space as a beach. More surprising to me seeing it, the Queen Mary was larger than the Titanic.

No, I didn't see any ghosts.

C 2021

Keep reading! This is part of a series!

GO SEE WHERE THEY WENT WHEN THEY GOT OFF THE SHIP #6

It's so easy now to print out ship manifests that are not so easy to read. It helps to enlarge the manifest on the computer screen and print close up images. All the information can be important.  A family group may be clear to you, but it's also possible some of those people on the same manifest not identified as a husband, wife, and children, or a mother and children, are also related to the ancestor you're focused on. 

Something I like to do is search by where they left - the village. And look for common surnames.

What you want to do next, after finding an ancestor on a ship manifest, is see where they go. If they're heading to the same town, that might be the reason to note the larger group. 

ELLIS ISLAND immigrants were steerage immigrants - on the cheapest tickets. Their motivation in coming to America was to earn money. They're generally poor rather than cheap. With that six hard earned dollars they've got in their pocket they have to get to their destination and a place to stay. Cabs, train tickets, a night in New York, a meal...

Though information about employers looking to hire immigrants was important to them and was exchanged in letters and on the voyage, so was information on where to stay. 

Boarding houses were not all big houses with nicely furnished rooms rented to individuals. A room could be rented to an entire family. A number of men could be sleeping on a floor. Sometimes immigrants stayed in churches until they found work. They could begin to network at Church or go to a local club meant to support people of their ethnicity - other Irish, Polish, Italian...

There were also big manufacturers, employers, who went to Europe looking for employees - usually those considered skilled. 

There were also incentives such as earning land; if a little town needed immigrants to populate or settle it, usually through farming or homesteading, they might have been invited to settle there.  (That's less applicable to immigrants coming into New York Harbor/ Ellis who came to settle on the east coast and more about certain areas of the mid-West and Texas.)

Did many people from the same place go to the same place? Did your ancestor live in a company town? A company row house? They may have gotten the job while still in Europe and the offer might have included housing. But a person willing to take any work at all, listed as a laborer, and not traveling with a wife or children, is probably heading to a boarding house or hotel.

Boarding houses were sometimes owned as businesses. If a woman with children was widowed, and she had a house, taking in boarders was a practical way to become self supporting. These women worked from morning till night. They had to provide meals, and do the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and importantly, all the filthy workman's laundry.

So. Let's take a look at the address the immigrant gave about the place they are going and who's there. If there is an address on the ship manifest you must go to it on the map and on the census. If a person and place are listed such as "brother in law John Richards, Camden, search for John on census.

If they came in 1906, who is there in 1900? 1910? If there's a state census look there too.

You can get to the right page for the address given on a ship manifest when the person named did not come up on census in a database. For every census, and you have to do so by census year, there is a district description/ map which will give county, city, and then ED, which means Enumeration District. That's the area a census taker was assigned to. Go to the ED without going page by page. 

However, if it's a small town, it may not be too much time to read each page till you come to that address. 

Remember this is the first place an immigrant went. It could be a family home, a boarding house, a hotel, a church. It could even be a house a relative owned.

I always run addresses given on ship and census through present day real estate sites and Google Earth. This is how I found out a relative who had a humble occupation bought a house with money he brought from Europe that's now on a historical tour and that another house, though more than a hundred years old, was up for sale a couple years ago. I got to see a townhouse in a bad part of town on Google Earth that was once new and when it was a good part. My ancestors lived on that street, went through that door. There were only two bedrooms for six children but so it was for their neighbors. Using maps and historical society information I learned they could walk to church and were near a vibrant shopping district, that streetcars ran nearby, and that they were the first generation to give up on an agricultural way of life for what was an ethnic ghetto but one from which sprang good citizens who stuck together during the Great Depression.

Such details certainly will enrich the family story I write. 

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN ? VERSUS WHERE DID YOU LEAVE? #5

A search for an ancestor's origin is a hope that you'll be able to link into records such as birth, baptismal, marriage, and death in church or civil records in another country and from these documents also learn who a person's parents were, so as to go back another generation or more. 

Be careful to read what the question is on passenger lists and other documents). Don't confuse "where were you born" with "where did you leave?" Yes, it is possible the person was born and left the same place but maybe not. Men in need of work moved to work more than women but even a servant girl might follow an employer.

On the steamships coming into the New York Harbor, the questions are "Where did you leave?" and "Where are you going?" The later usually being more informative because a name, relationship, and sometimes an entire address is written.

On documents which some of the Industrial Revolution era / ELLIS ISLAND immigrants can be found on, such as United States World War I Draft Registration, Naturalization/ Citizenship, and Death Certificate (Civil), there will be a comforting repeat of information. 

However, as much as we would love for this to always be the case, here's a scenario from my personal research.

A woman's husband makes two trips to America through Ellis in steerage. He lists two different places he left and he leaves from two different ports. The name is the same and I decide it is the same man for two reasons. Both places he left are in the same region, one a larger city. It's impossible to know how long he stayed in America the first time. But he was going to the same place in America both trips. I only know this because I read every original ship manifest that listed men with his name.

However, my notion that his wife would also come through Ellis turns out to be wrong. She shows up with a baby she's nursing on a 2nd class ticket some time later. The family story is that this baby was a couple months old. The baby's date of birth is on her death certificate and other American documents consistently. She could have been premature, but I see she was six months old on that ship. I see it is quite possible that the husband went back to the Old Country, the couple conceived a child. Then at perhaps the three month point in the pregnancy it was clear he had better make a decision about America and employment.

But where did she leave from? Another place again - her sister's. A family story is that her new mother-in-law wasn't nice. So I guess she decided it would be better to stay with her sister and have her baby there with her husband in America. Goodbye Mother-in-law! 

But imagine another scenario. You or your spouse are poor. You love your family and friends but you need to earn income. You have the sense that you might never come back once you go to America. So you go visiting before you leave. Or you give up your own house and stay with family - a long good-bye. When you answer that question about where you left, it could be a location that's not where you were born at all. 

And here is another scenario that wasn't uncommon. A man uproots his family with the final goal to be America. But, like the scene in the famous Titanic film made by James Cameron, there are men working around the port earning money for a ticket or tickets. This was the case for many leaving the German and British ports. Irish going to Liverpool. Slavs going to Breman or Hamburg. In which case, as passengers they may report having left there rather than a home town, especially if they stayed a year or more. 

The expense of steamship travel certainly put a distance between classes although you might not assume a better ticket meant that a person came from more money. While steerage passengers felt the ships movements down below and knew their trip to America might be their first and last time ever on a ship, there were merchants and buyers for New York stores going back and forth regularly, Honeymooners on their European vacations, and members of High Society going about their yearly seasonal progress of travel. The Titanic film does an excellent job of revealing class difference on a ship; rich, middle class, and poor. However, a man who came in steerage might earn enough to provide a better ticket for his wife, wishing to spare her the steerage experience.

And, what if you're determined to unite your entire family in America, including your sibling who is "slow" or visibly different? You might choose another way to get them into the country rather than leave them alone. You might find yourself and your sibling on another boat, even one with sails, or landing on a beach and walking in.

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

PASSENGER ARRIVALS FROM WHERE? ETHNIC IDENTITY VERSUS BORDERS #4

Today a region once called Galicia is in Poland, but Galicia, ruled as part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, now would be parts of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. But on a ship manifests a person with these ethnic identities might have left "Austria."

Basically, you've got to research the history of war and politics. Be niche specific. Get out your maps. Look at borders. Remember borders as we think of them today weren't so official or supervised. It could be that a road was blocked but people traveled through the woods or well known farm roads. Try not to get that genealogy myopia that would have you think people couldn't move, travel, or live past a "border" be it a city, county, or country. Don't think that certain ethnic groups wouldn't deal with each other because you'll find that there are stereotypes to bust. Ethnic and religious intermarriage, for instance, did happen. 

I'm communicating this because people using passenger list databases sometimes disqualify a listing over ethic identity or location.

We also need to research the changes in the names of settlements, some which have had three different names in a short lifetime. More obscure even with today's maps on the Internet that zoom, are tiny settlements that back in the day locals knew as farmsteads.

I once searched a half dozen paper and on line maps looking for a location an immigrant gave as the place he left, which appeared on a ship passenger list. In 2020 a Polish genealogy site listed this habitation and to my surprise hundreds of people lived and died there over a hundred years with about a dozen surnames repetitive. Yet it was not on these maps. At another location however, on another map listed a huge Communist Era "commune" named after one of these families. Today I understand this place must have been like - like a vale of hobbits* and only one decided to go on an adventure to America! Finally I found a reference to it in a text, basically alluding to it as a fork in the road. Maps often have some criteria such as listing only places that have a population of, say, 500 or more.

With change of place name also comes the difference in the way a place is spelled and how it's pronounced by a native speaker who also has a regional accept and may also speak a "high" or "low" form of that language. Great Grand Ma kept saying she was from a certain place but you can't find it. (It turns out she was naming the biggest city, not her suburb! Kind of like what some men do to state their football team preference as Boston Celtics so you think they're from Boston when they're from Massachusetts.

You've got to run that place name past a native speaker.

Along with ethic identity, consider the reportage. I've seen so many manifests where it seems men are ghettoized by an ethnic identity or assumption. Hey, maybe they stuck together the whole trip. But maybe not. I wonder.

I can imagine these men having conversations. Why they're traveling. Where they left and where they're going. What kind of work they're seeking and who is waiting for them. Giving advise on trains, boarding houses, and employment. Who has an unmarried sister who needs a husband? I also see how immigrants helped each other, some brothers, some brothers of a different mother, I think we today could envy the friendships they made.

C 2021

*Hobbit as in Bilbo Bagging.

ELLIS ISLAND PASSENGER RECORDS and THE MYTH OF NAME CHANGES and ETHNIC NAMES #3

There's a popular myth that passengers debarking from steerage (3rd class) off steamships at ELLIS ISLAND sometimes had their surnames changed by authority figures - clerks. It's not true. 

However, if you were an illiterate passenger who spoke your name in your own language, it's possible that the person hearing and recording your name could make an error. But wait a minute! You have a ticket. You were added to a list of passengers departing from another port where your surname was also recorded, and by someone whose first language was German or your native language. Even if you never went to school and couldn't read and write in your own language, you might have learned to sign your name. (And signing your name might mean that on American census, when asked if you're literate, the answer is yes.)

Did some immigrants change their own names or the spelling of them, given and/or surnames? They did. Sometimes more than once. Usually they did so informally, by use, rather than what we do now, go to court. Making a break from the Old World and starting anew in the New World was an opportunity to develop a new identity. (And yes, some immigrants would drop a religion they felt held them back or disappear and never send for a wife left behind.)

What this has to do with finding an ancestor on a database that includes the port of New York - or really any other port - is that you might be looking for the name of the person to be consistent with the name you know them by, which might be the name on a census or naturalization papers or not.

My experience is that the given name is the first to be changed to be Americanized. There are thousands of Maria's who become Mary's. I found one who became Mammie. That's easy. 

You should always consider the name and its variants, Americanized, then go back to ethnic origins. Doing so and running a given name through databases has helped me find some ancestors whose surnames were really screwed up by census takers and other recorders. Screwed up in spelling or in confusing bad handwriting that was then transcribed into bad text, but not, if you go forward, changed after all.

Take the name Walenty. I found him using not Walter, but Valentine. An accurate translation by the way.

Elizabeta became Betty, Beth, and Lizzy.

Consider Lawrence, a man who self identified as Polish and left a village near the Ukraine, which was Galicia. (But who turned out to be Ruthenian and in Greek Catholic records.) In Polish his name is Wawrzyniec. In German, one of the languages he spoke, Lars. Lorenz, Lauren, or Leuz. In Russian, Lavrent, Levrentiy. And so on. Lawrence went to work as a crew member on a ship where his given and surname were Germanicized.

Although you might think that English versions of a name were prioritized, for central and eastern Europeans, German was a second language so using German equivalents was more comfortable and useful. German speaking people were already in America and used that language in common, especially in the workplace. So I've seen Slavic given and surnames become German by spelling or meaning. 

Consider a name change when your ancestors just doesn't seem to be on records you seek.

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

STEAMSHIP MANIFESTS and CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES #2

The original ELLIS ISLAND searchable database now uses slidey bars that I find annoying. These are especially difficult to use on cell phones and by some seniors and others who have arthritis or shaking in their hands or are otherwise unable to easily achieve exactitude using them. I like to input a range of dates and other information by typing.

You don't have to use it. The National Archives New York branch also has passenger records and detailed information for New York Harbor.

See PASSENGER ARRIVAL LISTS. U.S. Customs Service was the agency.

Do you need to search through many lists of names at all?

Most immigrants were aware of the rules for obtaining American Citizenship, also called Naturalization. They knew they would be making a Declaration of Intent, which we call First Papers. After about two years of working and being on good behavior, they could continue the process, making an application. About seven years living in the country was the fastest process for citizenship on average. Of course there were a number of reasons why it could take longer ranging from their own uncertainty about staying and making that Declaration of Intent to historical events like World War I and changes in government rules. Certain ethnic groups were considered suspicious and their process was stalled out during that war. Another consideration was the cost. If you were scraping by poor, you might not have the filing fee. That said, the typical Industrial Revolution immigrant didn't face complications that would require hiring a lawyer. So, your good behavior and ability to support yourself was proof you qualified to be a welcomed new citizens and swear your allegiance to The United States of America.

Then at some point quotas based on country/ethnicity were determined which slowed immigration down considerably. This was tied in with the understanding that America had enough workers in factories and manufacturing.

The amount of information to be found on a citizenship application varies from State to State and when the application was filed. Generally in 1906 forms required more information and there was less regional difference. Pennsylvania, for instance, has space on their form to list the names of wife and children who would all become citizens at the same time. Other places seem to have been much less formal. A man walked into a court house and raised his hand to swear he was giving up, say, the King, accompanied by a friend from work who was already a citizen to witness and walked out. A clerk wrote his name and address in a book. It's brief. That was that.

All this is said because if you already have the citizenship papers, the applicant may have listed the date of arrival and the name of the ship. You can go right to that information on the passenger lists and may be rewarded with some interesting details. 

Be aware that a function of Ellis was also to keep records so if an immigrant lost their information, they could ask for a certificate. I personally haven't seen any certificates but I have seen notes on manifests indicating someone looked at them and found a person's name to provide that information for their citizenship.

Therefore, there can be a relationship between the date of entry into the U.S. and moving forwards in time and finding citizenship papers as well.

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

ELLIS ISLAND STEAMSHIP PASSENGER SITE : HOW NOT TO USE IT #1

ELLIS ISLAND : ROMANTIC

I'm one of the people who got up in the middle of the night to get into the original passenger lists database site when it first opened years ago, sure I had ancestors who came to the United States, processed through ELLIS ISLAND. Oh, that site was just so jammed up. 

I was half right. I eventually learned ancestors came through New York before Ellis. Other ancestors avoided steerage class - third class tickets - and thus getting off at Ellis. First and second class passengers got off with ease at Castle Garden first and did not have to go through the medical inspection required at Ellis. Ancestors bought tickets for other ports. It depended on where their final destination might be but prices for tickets could be competitive. New York Harbor was busy with ships. It seems to me immigrants were unloaded by the hundreds. 

The city was daunting for people who left villages and an agricultural way of life. Though the medical examination was brief - about five minutes - and focused on noticeable eye infections and obvious mental illness, it was an intimidating exam. Unscrupulous cab drivers and thieves and con artists awaited the unsuspecting immigrant with a difference in language and village innocence. Sometimes the person was thieved of the money they had taken years to earn. As a result authorities wanted to know that an immigrant had a contact - somewhere to go - or that someone was meeting them just outside.

What New York had going for it was the trains. You could get almost anywhere if you got off a ship in New York and then made your way to the train station.

Millions of Americans do have an ancestor who came through Ellis Island though. Their people came into the U.S. witnessing the Statue of Liberty holding her torch high above the New York Harbor. They were filled with so much hope that this country would be the place to have a better life. They'd been on board from 10 days from German ports to a week leaving Southhampton. Or they had crossed from Liverpool or sailed the Mediterranean. Steerage immigrants had not seen much of the ocean during their trip though. They were usually only allowed on deck to stretch and breath for an hour a day. Then it was back down into the least desirable part if the ship, called steerage because a passenger could feel the movement of the ship. It could be dim, crowded, noisy, and smelly. It was not the place for a pretty young woman alone though more than once now I've met people whose ancestors met on the boat over and decided to marry.

So the other day I decided to revisit the original Ellis Island database, which has an "excuse our dust" apology up as the promise is made that it's being upgraded. I tried the password I had remembered twice and it didn't work. So I decided to change my password. In the associated email, which was consistent, came the message that the deed was done. I went to login at Ellis again with the new password but I got an alert that due to three password attempts my "account" was blocked. I tried more than a half hour later. Still blocked. So I followed the link to Administrator, where I filled out a contact and complaint form. Up came the capcha. I filled that in correctly and it fed me another one; it presented the whole form again blank. At that point I'd wasted a half hour and was too frustrated to continue. Is this the "dust"? My opinion? The only reason this site wants you to have an account to use it is because that's tied into their increasingly feeble offerings to fund raise. They went and sold their data to other databases that charge fees to use them years ago, databases which are not as temperamental. Sorry, but if they thought their data was this precious to be restricted they shouldn't have. And this site started out free to use without a login.

Maybe another day. 

So. You may decide to navigate the original Ellis Island database site or use another database which contains these records.

Note that "New York" ship records found elsewhere will possibly include records of 1st and 2nd class passengers, crew, and pre-Ellis records. You might also find those detained or hospitalized. That could be interesting for your family history narrative.

Be aware that you may eventually find the same passenger coming in more than once, which means they may have first gone on a vacation, a go see, meeting up with relatives or friends, and then they went back to put their affairs in order.

(The Breman, Germany lists of departures from Europe are the only ones I know of.)

Typically men came first and then sent their wives tickets, or went back for them and came with a family group. I found one young lady who'd been orphaned who crossed with a designated escort. In some cases men went back and forth as seasonal laborers - this was common of Hungarian and Italian men. What happened in those months couples were apart?

I'll post the next advisory in a few days.

Continue to the best of your ability to stay safe.

C 2021 

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

INTO THE FUTURE AND STEPPING INTO THE PAST

Hello to my ANCESTRY WORSHIP genealogy readers here in the U.S.  and Europe. I want to start the New Year, 2021, with a message of hope. I really do. Oh, I know, we have all been put to the test due to the restrictions of living in plague times. We are lonely, bored, cranky, crazy. Some of us are in grief and many are dealing with loss. We are having bad dreams when we sleep.

Humanity as a whole has been through plague before. I hope we can move on from this bad time. It does take cooperation and collaboration to survive.

I don't know about you, but genealogy practice and family history research has given me a greater understanding of human perseverence. And though not much changed on New Years day with Covid-19 - the vaccinations have begun but the statistics are frightening - it's still a symbolic new start. In this case, here at ANCESTRY WORSHIP - a genealogy blog - to use research to go back to the past and learn more about our ancestors and perhaps relearn to stand on their shoulders to make it through our days.

As a quick update first, for those if you following the Italian citizenship quest, no, the archive in Italy has not responded in any way to the letter and money sent there three months ago. Asked what to do, I said don't send more money but Italy us decimated so let's wait.

So, I'm going to start the new year by posting on ELLIS ISLAND and using ship manifests -passenger arrival records- to locate ancestors in the Old Country. 

Let's try to start anew.

Someone sent me this photo and I have no idea where it came from. Do you?

SHIP MANIFESTS and THE ELUSIVE POOR ANCESTOR

There is so much romance attached to ancestors coming through Ellis Island in steerage, that you may be surprised to know that the 1st and 2nd class passengers could skip the whole Ellis Island scene and were left off first in New York.

It may surprise you to learn that your ancestor actually didn't make just one trip, but several back and forth before having taken care of all their business in the old country, such as selling property, settling old mom - too old to immigrate - with relatives. 

It may also surprise you to learn that there were other, busy ports, including Canadian ports, or that your ancestor may have taken a trip to Argentina first, checked it out, and then decided to come to the United States.  Your ancestor may have also come on a ship that wasn't one of the big-line steamships.  There were people coming in as crew.  There were still sail ships operating coming into smaller and unofficial ports.  You may have checked all the available databases out, straining through near unreadable handwriting, missing manifests, and so on; all you know is that they are suddenly on a census.

If you find their naturalization papers, you will probably learn that they declare the date they arrived and the name of the ship.  For some, obtaining evidence of this voyage, if they didn't still have a ticket /paperwork still on them, was a step towards naturalization.  Even if those ship manifests or passenger lists no longer exist they will name the date and ship and often place.

During the pre-aviation era, ships were the way to go.   The romance of immigrants coming in by ship sort of negates what else was going on.  Such as people who were traveling back and forth to Europe on business, such as spending sprees for fashionable clothing, banking and investments, and visiting relatives or taking long vacations for pleasure.  People walking across borders.  People who skipped Ellis and questions about disease and mental health.  If an immigrant wanted to bring a sibling along who probably wouldn't pass through Ellis, say because they were "slow," they might suggest the person was a shy twelve year old rather than a budding fifteen.

What reminded me of all this was a relations question about our great-grandmother.  By using oral history about the age of the first child, said to be in her mother's arms when they arrived to meet up with our great-grandfather, I had not found her on my first efforts with microfilms of ships coming into New York.  I assumed New York.  The assumption turned out to be right.  But I calculated after finding the first child's birth date on the Social Security Death Index to another date.  This time the first microfilm I rolled had them there.  Previously I had found great-grandfather's immigration.  Yes he was there before she was.  My relations questioned the parentage of this first child.  Without knowing if she was possibly born premature or late, and based on her strong resemblance to him, I had not doubt she was the child of our great-grandparents.  Yet, this made me go back into the ship manifests to check out other men with the same name.

As it turned out I was able to verify that indeed great-grandfather had made two trips.  On one ship manifest it says WHERE DID YOU LEAVE?  Since this village was near the larger town that both referred to as having come from, well....  on the first trip it says WHERE WERE YOU BORN?  In this case the man with the same name gives a different answer.  He refers to a larger region that contains the village that he left, and this lead me to realize that he was probably not BORN exactly where he left.  This actually has opened up the place I can look for records of his birth and possibly their marriage.

In any case, though two trips makes sense, I won't consider this proofed until I can prove that two men of the same age, name, and region, did not exist at the same time.

C 2018  Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

ELLIS ISLAND IMMIGRANT PORTRAITS

PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW - ELLIS ISLAND IMMIGRANTS


EXCERPT: These images of people wearing their folk costumes were taken by amateur photographer Augustus Sherman who worked as the Chief Registry Clerk on Ellis Island from 1892 until 1925. The people in the photographs were most likely detainees who were waiting for money, travel tickets or someone to come and collect them from the island.

WHAT'S IN A NAME CHANGE - WHAT MAKES ME MAD - PART ONE

Over the years, in books I've read especially, I've come across negative commentary by various authors who are finding fault with people's name changes.  Its their way of insinuating negative things about other's personality, character, or psychology, and that makes me mad.  It's most often unfair.  When I come across that kind of criticism in a biography, I wonder how much I should believe that the author wrote.

Many people are not comfortable with the name they were given at birth and many people have felt compelled to change their surname due to the prejudices they've experienced - or just because they feel like it.  Take for instance the children of hippies who were, as a friend's son was, given a long Native American name when they were Jewish!  (He changed his name in college.)

It seems to me that drastic name changes that individuals or their Hollywood studios, managers, or agents, demanded are understood or forgiven as the means to celebrity and career success.  (i.e. Norma Jeanne Baker became Marilyn Monroe.)  But oh if a common person adds a letter, gets rid of the son, ski, sky, szke, or some other suffix, or gives a name a twist or a twirl to do so.  Sometimes this change is to make a name difficult to pronounce in English easier on other people.

I've talked about the Ellis Island name change as a myth at least once on this blog, but I've met a lot of people who claim that is where a drastic name change occurred.  Maybe that's even what their immigrant ancestor claimed, but more than likely, if the name change was drastic, then the person probably decided that to completely start anew they might as well.

Some immigrants came from places were surnames were fairly recent, where family members were not unified in what they wanted the family surname to be, or they had a Jewish name and an American name.  (Their documents from the old country would be more revealing.  Did they get on the boat with the same name they got off with?  Did they apply for citizenship with the name they used on the boat? Did they appear on a census in the Old Country with that name?  What does it say on birth certificates?)

Many ethnic groups had a very hard time getting viable work and income, and found that when they were out of work employers didn't even call them in for interviews - until they changed their names.  This has been true for decades.  In my time one family I know changed their five syllable Italian name, which actually was quite musical to the ear pronounced correctly, to the father's first name (i.e. Robert Roberts) and his whole career changed.  Another family had a German name that sounded like a sex act and their children were being teased on the playground.  Let's just say they changed their surname to Fox, and their pubescent daughter stopped getting harassed.  If a child is being bullied, maybe it's time for a name change.

Other people have discovered their ethnic heritage roots in adulthood and discovered that their surname has been slightly misspelled all along and go back to the original spelling.

(to be continued)


C 2017  Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot All Rights Reserved.

A HOLIDAY MEMORY OF A GENEALOGY CLIENT THAT TAUGHT ME A LESSON

It's been a while, nearer 20 years than 10, since, around this time of year, when I was first trying to attract some pay for my genealogy research skills, that I met a woman who taught me a lesson.  Never ever, for any reason, take on a client who suddenly has a "rush order" for genealogy services.

I met the woman at a lecture about searching through the Ellis Island Databases, and she had, she said, spent years compiling research for a book.  A family reunion was coming up, and she was missing some information on a relative who had gotten lost in Texas.  She hoped to have the book published and ready to hand out at the reunion. Actually, the relative had married outside her faith and the family disowned and shunned her.  Now, decades later, this woman felt it was only right to include this once disowned person in the book. She hired me to find "Bertha" and provide some information which might be easy to get to.

I knew what I needed to do, but there was one big issue.  "Bertha" had a given name that had undoubtedly been changed, and this family had even forgotten what her married surname was.  There had apparently been absolutely no contact with her once she married. It was said that despite them the marriage had succeeded and that there had been property, a ranch.  They were sure she had died.  They couldn't even remember what the given name of her husband was. They also only knew it was in Texas, a big state with lots of counties.

Based on the information this researcher gave me as a starting point, I did historical research about how immigrants from Europe got to Texas in the days when Ellis Island was a frequent drop off point for steerage (sometimes called 3rd class) passengers.   Had Bertha come in steerage? People are so sure because they don't know that passengers with better tickets skipped the Ellis Island routine.   Had she taken a train from New York?  What trains ran to Texas?  After finding that there was a way to Texas mostly by train, from New York to Chicago and then going south, I decided that Bertha had possibly come into New York, but as she didn't appear on any of the New York Ship Records Databases, to try other ports.  The one I focused upon first was the one in Galveston, Texas.

One could travel by ship down the coast, around Florida, and through the Gulf of Mexico.  Or one could travel by land to Florida.  I found a woman with a surname that was probably a variation on the original surname coming into Galveston.

I wondered why she had gone to Texas?  I suspected that there was land to be had free or inexpensive, some lure to settlement in a place so different than Germany.  But maybe it wasn't that she chose Texas and went and then met the man.  Maybe she met the man and he said, "New York City is not for us."

I lost the trail.  Meanwhile my client started calling me too much and inappropriately, such as at ten at night and on Sundays.  I figured she was lonely and trying to make a friend but she also was in error thinking that all the time spent on the phone was pushing me to work harder.  I was already working smart and efficiently and started to feel hounded and resentful. 

I called historical societies and archives in Texas, starting with the Galveston area, to learn about local resources.  I talked to an "expert."  Was there, for instance, a particular settlement where people from Germany who spoke German wanted to live?  Had there been a call out from ranchers who needed wives?

Again using databases, I searched for this woman using several known variations of her maiden surname and given name.  Nothing came up.  That didn't mean she wasn't in Texas when she should have been, just that the information wasn't on databases.

I set up an in person appointment at this client's home to go over all that I had done and what I had found.  Was it possible that this might help her or one of her relatives remember more about Bertha? I wrote up a few paragraphs about Bertha that summed up what was known about her life before she left the family, careful to call what was speculation, speculation, and not fact.

I got there and my client suggested that she was a poor senior citizen and asked for a senior citizen discount.  Meanwhile, maybe it was only a condo in Beverly Hills, but the interior was lux.

I've never done this since, but I stopped working for her, stopped taking her calls, sent her the work I had done in the mail, and never billed her.

I heard she took all my work, claiming it was hers, down to a local LDS where she asked the missionaries for help.  They know what all I had done and told her they didn't know anyone who could.  I appreciated that.


C 2016 All Rights Reserved.  This post is a section of a book I will someday publish.
Please honor it accordingly. 

ELLIS ISLAND IMAGES

ELLIS ISLAND CLERK AUGUSTUS SHERMAN's PHOTOS - THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN MELTING POT

DAILY MAIL - AUGUSTUS SHERMAN's ELLIS ISLAND PHOTOS


Dutch children in clogs, a Romanian piper with sheep skin cape, a Slovak woman and a Ruthenian woman in their best  embroidered dresses...


If you haven't seen these photos yet, you've missed out.

"Yet Sherman's notes offer only the most tantalizing of glimpses into the life of the immigrants risking it all to reach the Land of the Free.

One man, covered in tattoos, is simply referred to as a German stowaway by the amateur photographer. 

Sherman, born in 1865 in Lynn, Pennsylvania, never received any training as a photographer in an age where the art was still in its infancy.

But his incredible pictures serve as a historic tapestry of America's diverse beginnings.

In 1907, they were published in National Geographic magazine and framed versions hung on the walls of headquarters of the federal Immigration Service in Manhattan.

Today, they are now housed by the New York Public Library."

ISLAND OF HOPE - ISLAND OF TEARS - ELLIS ISLAND DOCUMENTARY by CHARLES GUGGENHEIM

Island of Hope - Island of Tears; Charles Guggenheim; National Park Service; AVA15996VNB1 1992 (1989); From 1892-1954, Ellis Island was the port of entry for millions of European immigrants.

Old footage of life in the agricultural old country.  How our ancestors left their villages to immigrate to the United States for work.

STEVENPMORSE ONE STEP LINKS - SOME FREE - SOME FOR PAY - ALL GOOD

STEVENMORSE ORG - LINKS TO ONE STEP MINING OF DATABASES

I've heard Stephen (the correct spelling of his first name - but it's Steven on the website) speak a couple times and his enthusiasm is contagious!  If you find frustration using another database, such as Ellis Island, using his utility may help you get to MISSING PAGES, and ALSO THE FIRST and SECOND CLASS PASSENGERS!