Need Ellis Island/ Geneology help.

Question

My great grandparents came to America sometime in the 1920's. They came through Ellis Island. When doing so, apparently their last name was "Americanized" and severely shortened. How do I find out what their original last name was?

Answer 1

The "name changed at Ellis Island" story is a massive urban legend that doesn't have many legs. Even IF there had been a clerical error when they disembarked, they had no less than 5 chances to correct the error. The laws were very fluid on foreign names in that era and they were allowed to change their names at any point until they were naturalized...with the Declaration of Intent and the Naturalization Petition being 2 of the prime times when they could change their names back.

Ellis Island closed in the 20s and it didn't have a lot of activity at the end. Work backwards to find out if the Ellis Island arrival is even accurate (odds are highly against it). Pull the Declaration of Intent and Naturalization petition from the National Archives. It will tell you the name of the ship that brought him over and date of arrival. It will also tell you every spelling of his name that he ever used and his hometown in Europe. If nothing else, it sures cuts down the speculation and it gives you a place to pull records from in Europe.

Answer 2

If you knew the month and year they came through, you might just read all of the records until you hit one that looked reasonable, if you had a fast connection and a lot of patience..

Their naturalization records may have their European and American names. Finding those would involve paper, pen and stamps. You'd have to find which county they were in when they did it, then buy a copy of the records.

Answer 3

Hi, a few thoughts come to mind:

1)  How sure are you that they came through Ellis Island?  Is it possible they arrived at Boston or Philadelphia or another port in the NE United States or Canada?  This site has a good guide for helping determine the port of entry:  http://www.genealogybranches.com/arrival...  Also, this site has good information on how to find their arrival record:  http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/passeng...

2)  Have you found them in the 1920 US Census with their new name?  Or the 1930 Census?  The "our name was Americanized at Ellis Island" story is common, but not necessarily true.  Most immigrants with "foreign-sounding" names actually changed their name voluntarily to sound more American.  http://genealogy.about.com/od/ellis_isla...

3)  Would you mind posting the information you have here (names, ship, dates of birth, country where born, etc.)?  Several of us would be more than willing to try to find your ancestors' immigration record.

I hope this helps, good luck!