Honoring Our Ancestors
Ships Lists Form for the Ellis Island Database
by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak
Well, Steve Morse is at it again, and that's good news for all of us! Many of you are aware that Steve has developed several search forms that can be used in conjunction with the American Family Immigration History Center's Ellis Island database (EIDB) to help ferret out any of our ancestors who might be playing a game of hide-and-seek with us www.ellisisland.org. For those who haven't used this database in a while, it might be useful to start with a bit of a refresher by walking through a search I recently performed using Steve's site www.stevemorse.org.
Where's My Giuseppe?
My husband--the other Smolenyak--is half-Italian, and I wanted to try to find the passenger arrival record of one of his great-grandfathers, Giuseppe Antonio Marino, in the database. Not appreciating how common his name was, I went directly to the EIDB and entered his name. 537 hits. That was a bit more than I wanted to wade through, so I put this task on hold for a while.
Recently, because of a quick jaunt to Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, where some of Giuseppe's kin had settled, I slipped into one of those lucky research streaks that rewarded me with a wealth of information. Among the newfound data were more details about Giuseppe. I now knew his birth date, and from census records I had located earlier, I knew that he had arrived in the U.S. in the late 1890s.
Equipped with these bits and pieces, I selected Steve's Gray Form (although the white one would have worked too) and entered the following:
- First Name starts with or is: G
- Last Name starts with or is: Marino
- Year of arrival is between: 1896 and 1899
- Age at arrival is between: 34 and 39
The first name was Giuseppe, which is often misspelled, so I opted to enter just the initial letter. The census records had indicated an arrival around 1897-98, but I added a buffer year to each end to play it safe. Knowing that he was born in 1861, I then calculated his likely age range in the late 1890s, which worked out to 35-38. As with the arrival date, I cushioned this by adding a year to each end.
The search revealed eight candidates, a manageable number by any standard. Through the process of elimination (his name wasn't Giovanni or Guelia), I quickly zeroed in on a 35-year-old Guiseppe (note the slight misspelling) Marino, whose passenger record informed me that he had arrived on April 22, 1897 on a ship called Karamania.
I clicked on View Original Ship Manifest, and realized something was wrong when I was taken to the manifest for a ship named Pretoria, which had apparently arrived from the West Indies. From previous experience, I knew that I was dealing with a mislinked image. And from dealing with this situation before, I also knew to snag the line number (in this case, 541) presented in the text information immediately above the mini-version of the manifest image.
An Alternative to the Missing Manifests Form
At this point, I could have done what I would
have in the past, and that is use Steve's Missing Manifest
Form. That would have worked, but fortunately, I had
just been informed of an even easier approach to tackle
this particular scenario. Data provided by Marian Smith
and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly
the INS)' the National Archives and Records Administration
in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and a team of volunteers
has made it possible to quickly locate specific arrivals
of any ship through Steve's Ships Lists Form at http://stevemorse.org/ellis/boat.html.
I went to this page and entered these details:
- Ship starts with or is: Karamania
- Arrived between: April 22, 1897
- and: April 22, 1897
Then I hit the Search button and up popped that particular arrival of the Karamania. Clicking on the name of the ship, I was next taken to the first frame of this manifest. Earlier, I had scribbled down the line number for "Guiseppe"--line 541--so now it was a matter of finding this listing. Eyeing the various navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen, I selected +4 and was taken to a page with entries 93-125. Obviously, I had a little further to go. I hit + 4 three more times until I came to a page ending in 521, so I knew I was close. As I hoped, one click of the +1 button took me to the page with listing number 541 for Guiseppe Marino. I took a moment to note down the frame number (142) at the bottom of the page, so it would be easier locating Giuseppe in the future.
Ships Lists: One More Tactic
So now we have yet another way to mine this tremendous resource. If you're one of the many who inherited an arrival tale, such as, "Grandma came on a ship called the Moravia right after the turn of the century" or "he sailed from Copenhagen in 1900," you now have yet another powerful way to surf for your immigrant ancestors. And should you go to Steve's site to take this new-and-improved search form for a test drive, be sure to check out some of his other handy tools, which make it easier to explore everything from New York Naturalization Records to the Israeli Phone Directory.
Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, author of Honoring Our Ancestors (HOA), In Search of Our Ancestors: 101 Inspiring Stories of Serendipity and Connection in Rediscovering Our Family History, and They Came to America: Finding Your Immigrant Ancestors, can be contacted through www.honoringourancestors.com.
Upcoming Events
- Miller Family Reunion
(31 July 2004, Lawnside, N.J.)
- Heritage Education Commission Family History Workshop XXIX
(2
October 2004, Moorhead, Minn.)
- Family History Fair (17 October 2004, New York,
N.Y.)
- Sandusky Library (October 23, 2004, Sandusky,
Ohio)
- Genealogical Society of Bergen County, New
Jersey (25 October 2004, Ridgewood, N.J.)
- 1st International Conference on Genetic Genealogy
for Family Tree DNA Group Administrators (30
October 2004, Houston, Tex.)
- Middlesex Genealogical Society (January 29,
2005, Darien, Conn.)
- Oklahoma Genealogical Society Spring Seminar
(April 30, 2005, Oklahoma City, Okla.)
- Orange County Genealogical Society (May 14,
2005, Goshen, N.Y.)
- Iowa Genealogical Society Annual Fall Conference
(October 6-8, 2005, Clive, Iowa)
Details and links to upcoming events: www.honoringourancestors.com/schedule.html
Copyright 2004, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved.
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Ancestry Quick Tip
Don't Overlook Deeds
In his 25 June 2004 article on property and land records, George Morgan decries their lack of usage by genealogists and family historians.
I agree. I would like to give an example of some information that can be gleaned from these records. My great-great-grandfather had ten siblings. When their father died in 1879, he left land jointly in the children's names. I was recently researching deeds in the county the father had lived in, and found a deed dated 1882 when the kids sold the land. This deed included the names of all the children, and even listed the married names of one of his daughters (she was listed as Mary Ann Brown in his will, and Mary Ann Dunkle at the time the deed was made) and also said that she was the guardian of her sister's children.
Lori Terwilliger
Bowling Green, Ohio
Thanks to Lori for today's Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to ADNeditor@ancestry.com.
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