Ellis Island Records - Passenger manifest records were kept of the more than 22 million people who entered the United States through Ellis Island. Key data available in Ellis Island records on immigrants contain up to eleven fields including important information such as name, gender, age on arrival, marital status, ship name, port of origin, and last residence.

The Full Name: Given names and surnames (last names) are necessary. It is useful to learn all of the immigrant's given names, such as Johann Wilhelm Karl Hummel. Some individuals went by a second name, a confirmation name, or a nickname. Not only will learning the full name help to identify a person in the records of the country of origin; sometimes the name alone, or part of the name, can be a clue to the immigrant's original country or region.

A Date: A birth date is preferable, but a date of marriage, a record of a religious event, military release, or other such information may substitute for a birth date, as long as the event took place in the native country. A complete date (day, month, and year) should be sought, but it is sometimes possible to identify an individual with only the year of an event.

A Place of Origin: Eventually, you must determine the specific place (town or parish) where the immigrant was born or lived before coming to the United States. This is the focus of immigrant origin research for most researchers. Sometimes it is possible to learn the specific town from records in the native country, but you should try to determine it from American records.

A Relative: Family relationships—especially parentage—are important. The more you know about a family as a whole, the easier it is to correctly identify the immigrant in records of his or her native country. If it is not possible to discover the father's name, seek the mother's name or the name of a spouse, brother, sister, or other close relative (uncle, aunt) as a substitute. Not only will this information help identify the person in native records, but you may be able to learn more about a brother's or son's place of origin than that of the ancestor who is the subject of your search. Many of the sources discussed in this chapter might name the native towns of some family members, yet not include your immediate ancestor.

While the minimum identification discussed above should allow you to recognize the ancestor in the records of the native country, you should also seek additional information that could provide clues to the town or county of origin or confirm that you have found the correct family. While some records might not indicate specifically where the person came from, they might provide clues that will lead to others until you find a record which finally shows the town of origin. If at all possible, learn the following about the immigrant:

Family Stories, Traditions, and Heirlooms: Surprising clues may survive in family traditions, letters, diaries, journals, religious records, postcards, photographs, scrapbooks, and mementos that have been saved over the years. One researcher, for example, was able to discover the area in Germany from which her family had emigrated because of a photograph in which her grandmother appeared in a lace cap. As she learned from reading about the country, the particular lace was a distinctive part of the costume worn in a specific region of Germany. An African American was able to determine the tribe from which his family had come through oral tradition and the distinctive pattern in a cloth that had been handed down in the family. Yet another family learned of its origins in France because of a medallion passed down through the generations. A watchmaker's descendant learned the precise town of the family's origin when she investigated the origin of the timepiece she had inherited.

Songs, dances, food, recipes, costumes, memorabilia, and many other things can provide important clues in finding ethnic origins. While many family traditions are exaggerated, especially regarding the immigrant's importance in the old country, there are usually some accurate facts that will serve as a basis to begin research. Yet these clues will mean nothing unless one has an understanding of the customs, geography, and history of an ethnic group. Linked with a basic knowledge of the immigrant's homeland-including the leading industry of the native district, common occupations, names of nearby towns, rivers, mountains, and other features of the area—a family story, a tradition, or an heirloom could provide the breakthrough that will identify the exact immigrant origins.

Friends and Neighbors: Many immigrants traveled together or settled among friends from their native land. Your search may need to include them.

Religion: Records created by religious organizations comprise a likely source of information in the country of origin. By learning the immigrant's religion, you can further identify him or her, limit your searches to records most likely to include the immigrant, and gain clues to more-specific geographical origins. For example, a Protestant German ancestor was more likely to have come from northern Germany than from a southern area. Often, entire religious colonies traveled together and are documented in religious literature. Knowing, for example, that an immigrant Englishman was a Quaker can significantly change your research approach.

Ethnicity: The natural security of living among people who speak the same language and have the same cultural or religious background is the bonding force that has traditionally kept ethnic communities together. Immigrants, particularly those who did not speak English, tended to settle in enclaves within cities and to cluster in specific regions of the United States. It was common for immigrants arriving in large numbers as a result of difficulties in their home countries to settle together on this side of the ocean, and then to migrate en masse within the United States.

Many immigrants felt a need to transplant and preserve, as much as possible, their culture and lifestyle as it existed in their native lands. Immigrant groups frequently founded their own churches, schools, banks, boarding houses, and other institutions. They also had their own academic, athletic, charitable, fraternal, occupational, and social organizations. Volumes have been written about virtually every ethnic group.

Ethnic presses generated newspapers and histories that focused on specific communities. Many ethnic publications survive that could be invaluable for those who want to learn more about the lives and times of their immigrant ancestors. Biographical sketches of Mrs. Isabella Atlanta Anderson and Jonas Anton Anderson, published in Algot E. Strand, A History of the Norwegians in Illinois (Chicago: J. Anderson Publishing Co., 1905), are typical of those found in ethnic publications. In most cases, birthplace, names of parents, spouse, and children, and details of the family or individual's arrival in the United States and other interesting information is revealed in these historical sources.

To learn what motives your ancestor may have had in coming to the United State, which groups came in what time period, where large concentrations of national groups typically settled, and other important information about settlement patterns, consult one or more of the works that focus on the specific ethnic group.

Name Changes: The immigrant's name often changed around the time he or she arrived in the United States. Sometimes this change was the result of a conscious choice to become Americanized, but usually it simply evolved during years of life in a new culture that used a language foreign to the immigrant. Therefore, name changes are most common among foreign-speaking immigrants. Some preliminary reading can be interesting and will almost always enhance the potential for success in the long run.

– Loretto Dennis Szucs

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