Product Description

Nearly half of the current United States population is directly related to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. This booklet guides visitors to the monument, as well as those interested in its history, through the Ellis Island experience. Leading family history author and researcher Loretto Dennis Szucs explains how you can find out if your relatives were among the millions who were processed for entry at this historic landmark.

With more than 30 images, it includes an overview of the history of immigration, a description of the process each immigrant endured at Ellis Island, and basic instruction on how to find out if an ancestor came through Ellis Island.

Ellis Island includes an overview of the history of immigration and the role of this principle receiving station in that history. It details the immigrant experience at Ellis Island and teaches you about the records that are available to help you trace your ancestors' entry into the New World.

Chapters include:

-The First Wave of Immigration: 1815-60
-The Second Wave of Immigration: 1880-1917
- How Ellis Island Evolved
- A Second Opening of Ellis Island
- Restoration of Ellis Island
- The Typical Immigrant Trek
- Chain Emigration: Merits and Risks
- Questions and Name Changes
- Did Your Ancestors Come Through Ellis Island?
- A Place to Start Your Research
- Some Records You May Find
- Family History Resources
- Tracing Immigrant Ancestors
- And more!

Get started on this search today!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #966260 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 52 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780916489953
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
With nearly half of the U.S. population directly related to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, this booklet guides visitors through the Ellis Island experience.

Customer Reviews

Collection of platitudes
The first chapters of the book describe the history of Ellis Island, and its role in American history. After reading the first two sentences of the book, we have already learned that Ellis Island is a "treshold of liberty" and "the symbolic shrine to freedom and opportunity". The first half of the book is filled with similar platitudes.

The author seems to be more interested in reinforcing romantic prejudices than in factual correctness. An example is name changes at Ellis Island. "Names were often a problem", writes Mrs. Szucs. "Not all immigrants could spell their names, and baffled officials jotted down names as they sounded." Those officials handled thousands of immigrants, and it would take more than a foreign-sounding name to "baffle" them. Name changes at Ellis Island were rare. Mrs. Szucs should have known better.

Another myth that the author reinforces but should have debunked is the "ocean journey that could last several months". The era of Ellis Island was also the era of steam ships. Maybe some ocean journeys lasted several months, but most of them lasted only a couple of weeks.

Later chapters are more down to earth, giving practical, useful (albeit terse) information on tracing immigrant ancestors (not limited to Ellis Island).