My mother told me that her father came through Ellis Island and that he worked as an interpreter there. When I found out that he arrived in the US before Ellis Island was established, I put this oral tradition into the strange and not true container.

From 1892 to 1924, more than 22 million immigrants, passengers, and crewmembers came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York. The ship companies that transported these passengers kept detailed passenger lists, called "ship manifests." An index to these manifests is on-line at http://www.ellisislandrecords.com/default.asp.

I donít like to devote a whole column to an Internet site, but this has to be an exception. The only other way that a person can search the index is to go to Ellis Island and do it in person. For those readers who do not have Internet access, please search out a friend who has a computer or go to the Fort Vancouver Library and use their computers.

During April 2001, the first month that the site was up, it had 1.9 million unique visitors. That is a lot of people! The site has settled down, and it is now possible to get on-line to search for grandpa or grandma or other members of the family. You begin your search by entering the name of a passenger.

I tried this with my grandmotherís name ‚ Frances Cvar. I already had her passenger manifest, so I knew she came through New York in 1906, just months before her marriage to the man who paid her passage from Slovenia. Since I didnít know how her first name was spelled on the index, I just entered her last name in the search box. I found a ìhitî for Francisca Cvar. From there, I followed the links to see a typed version of some of the information on the manifest: her name, age, residence in Austria, the name of the ship and the date that it arrived in New York, and the port where it left Europe.

Some of the entries have a link to the scanned page from the original passenger manifest. These are particularly exciting for there is additional information including the name of the closest relative in the old country and the name of the person the immigrant is going to meet in the US. The index is arranged by exact spelling, close matches and alternate spellings. If you have difficulty finding your ancestor, try the close matches options.

© 2001

Connie Lenzen, CG