Quote:
Originally Posted by tomwed
Thanks again for a wow moment. I followed your link and found some relatives [ancestors] of mine, nothing noteworthy to anyone but me and mine. The search feature is pretty amazing. My last name was fabricated on Ellis Island around 1880.
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I thank you for your compliment. I have learned that the common story of immigrants having their name changed at Ellis Island is a myth. When your ancestors got on the boat, a manifest of passengers was created. It was written in English letters as opposed to Greek or Cyrillic or Yiddish or Russian if the ship was going to America. The ship agent or officer wrote down what he heard or copied off a paper if there was one. That name, created on boarding the ship was not changed when you got here. There was no assigning of names when you got off the boat.
Just as to your situation, of course, there was no Ellis Island [opened in 1892] in the 1880's rather immigrants if they came through NYC were mostly processed through Castle Garden.
Castle Garden you can search for your family.