About 70% of immigrants to the U.S. during 1892 through 1954 came through the Ellis Island immigration station. The Station’s history including the Wall of Honor, and the changing questions on ship manifest forms will be shown.
The pressures of the "Great Migration" eventually led to immigration quotas. The persistent myth of name changes at Ellis Island will be analyzed. Twenty percent of processed immigrants ended up on detention sheets, and we will find out where those can be found. Finally, with case studies, we will find out how to use all three (3!) of the ship name indexes.
After this talk the audience should have a clear idea of the process the immigrants went through, and a greater appreciation of the manifest as a genealogy research tool.
