Help getting started with immigration documentation
Immigration
Castle Garden, America's First Immigration
Center
Site operated from 1830 through the opening of Ellis Island, in 1892.
Ellis Island Passenger Arrivals
Ellis Island operated primarily from 1892-1924. The Web site requires registration,
which is free. High resolution versions of documents are available for
sale.
Stephen Morse's Alternative Search Interface for Castle Garden
Search Strategies
The following information is based on my own experiences using Castle Garden and Ellis Island. It's easiest to search for the right ship manifest if you know some basic information, roughly in the order below:
- Name of the relative
- Date that they immigrated
- Country and/or port of departure
- Port of arrival
There are also some things to try if the search doesn't work right away:
- Names can get mis-spelled by the agent in customs, and some families made small changes to the spellings of their names that weren't always discussed. Make a list of possibilities and try them.
- If the obvious mis-spellings don't work, many sites let you use wild-cards in their searches. If Zweifelhofer doesn't work, try Zweif* that will return every last name that starts with Zweif. If there are too many add more letters; not enough, remove some letters.
- Immigration dates are often in census data, starting with the 1900 census. Remember that relatives often don't always remember the dates specifically, but should get you within a year or two.
- Census data will also tell you what country they came from, but remember that country borders have changed, and sometimes the census taker "interpreted" what the person said. It might not be a perfect match, but provides a clue.
- Most libraries now have computers with access to ancestry.com on them; a great place for census data.