Honoring Our Ancestors
Ellis Island Re-Launches
by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak
Many of you are familiar with The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation's (SLEIF) site (www.ellisisland.org) and recall the excitement when it first launched in April 2001. Since then, the Ellis Island database (EIDB) has received a whopping 6 billion hits, so we're obviously making heavy use of it. But like good twenty-first-century citizens, we've already come to take this tremendous resource for granted. Sure, you were finally able to find grandpa's passenger arrival record during a pajama-time surfing session, but what has the Foundation done for you lately?
New and Improved
In celebration of Family History Month in October, SLEIF announced a re-launch of its site. The re-launch involved a series of improvements, but I'd like to focus on a few that are the most meaningful for gung-ho genealogists.
First and foremost, the search capability has been improved. Mind you, this is a work in progress. If you visit the site, you'll find a note stating that the Foundation is still testing and fine-tuning the new features, but they all seem to be operational. If you're familiar with Steve Morse's white, blue, and gray forms (www.jewishgen.org or www.stevemorse.org), you'll recognize a lot of the new features. While the main page allows you to search by first and last name, approximate year of birth, and gender, you can widen your options to include the following by selecting "passenger search" and then "advanced search" from the menu bar at the top:
- First Name of Passenger (by: is, starts with, or contains)
- Last Name of Passenger (by: is, starts with, alternate spellings, or sounds like)
- Gender (by: any, male, or female)
- Approximate Year of Birth of Passenger with Year Range (+ or -: 1, 2, 5, or 10 years)
- Approximate Year of Arrival with Year Range (+ or -: 1, 2, 5, or 10 years)
- Town/Village of Origin (by: is, starts with, or contains)
- Name of Passenger Ship (by: is, starts with, or contains)
- Ethnicity (select as many as you like from a menu of about 170 ethnicities)
Trying It Out
I was keen to put this new functionality to the test, so I went to the Advanced Passenger Search to experiment. I frequently use my own surname to tinker with databases because it makes for a rigorous test. Smolenyak is a rare name (with a common Soundex) that invites misspelling. Consequently, I've found it handy for revealing both the strengths and shortcomings of databases. I had already tested the EIDB with Smolenyak, though, so I decided to put myself in the shoes of a couple of friends whose surnames share the same qualities. Njegomir and Nakashian, it seemed to me, would challenge any database as well as my own name.
I tried first with Njegomir. I didn't have a particular Njegomir in mind, so I wanted to get the big picture. First I tried a general search for passenger last name is Njegomir. This produced nine hits. But surely this name could be misspelled, so what if I tried passenger last name starts with Njeg? There were seventy-two hits for me to scan seeking Njegomirs who might have been hidden by variations in the last two syllables.
A search for alternate spellings turned up only two candidates--Njegomic and Njegomiz--but when I checked the original ship manifest of each, I was rewarded with an additional pair of Njegomirs, who had been slightly masked by the interpretation of a single letter at the end (and yes, they did look as if they ended in c and z, respectively).
What about sounds like? This netted me 794 hits--more than I cared to wade through for my little experiment, but probably worth it if I were looking for my elusive Njegomir great-uncle.
I repeated the experiment with Nakashian. There were 11 exact matches, 12 alternate spellings (including Nacashian and Nakkashian), and 794 sounds-like hits. I realized this would be a good name to try out the ethnicity menu with, since virtually all Nakashians are Armenian. I tried entering passenger last name starts with Nak and limiting the results to just those identified as Armenian. This tactic seemed especially productive, as it resulted in 57 names, most of which were clearly variations of Nakashian (e.g., Nakeshjian, Nakichian, etc.) that I would have been hard pressed to imagine.
I still hadn't played with the town/village of origin option, so I reverted to one of my own names for this purpose and looked for Motyczkas from Barwinek, Poland. I decided to search for passenger last name sounds like Motyczka, coupled with town/village of origin starts with barw (since the names of our villages are just as prone to misspelling as our surnames). This gave me a list of eleven passengers, seven of whom were obviously Motyczkas from Barwinek, although I doubt I would have thought to search on Maatyczka.
They're Listening
With the site's new features, it's clear that some elusive ancestors will now be easier to find, but what else is new? A Genealogy Learning Center (which includes a few free downloadable forms) will be of interest to folks who are new to their roots quest, but I was more taken with other features, such as Famous Arrivals (just click on "Genealogy" and "Famous Arrivals" on the top menu). Here I could view the passenger arrival records of Bela Lugosi, Bob Hope, and Sigmund Freud, among others.
Perhaps my favorite feature--and yes, this reveals the geek in me--is the transcription error option. Because I've written on Ellis Island quite a few times in the past, I've received a number of e-mails from folks who believe that their ancestor's record has been transcribed in such a way that will make it difficult for others to find. Of course, you could always send an e-mail about this to the Foundation, but with competing priorities, it was unclear what happened with these messages.
Now when you do a search and click through to the Passenger Record (from the initial list of candidates), you are taken to a page with basic data supplied in certificate form (also available for purchase). If you look to the right of the certificate in the third brownish box, you'll see a note inviting you to submit any transcription errors you may have spotted. When you click here, the site automatically generates an e-mail for you (much like Ancestry.com's automatically-generated letters for requesting Social Security applications from the Social Security Administration). This e-mail already includes all the pertinent details of the passenger's arrival, so all you have to do is type any suggested corrections next to the original transcription and hit the send button. One line in the e-mail reads, "Thank you for notifying me by e-mail when the changes have been made," so it won't be necessary to check the site each week to see if any modification has been made.
Ellis Island Sails Again
These latest modifications will undoubtedly benefit the lucky 40 percent of us who claim one or more Ellis Island ancestors, but even if you don't have Ellis Island roots, you might want to take a peek. Your ancestors may have come pre-1892, but it's unlikely they were the only Reynolds to ever come from Mohill, Ireland (feel free to substitute your surname and village). A search of the EIDB just might lead you to a few second, fifth, or eighth cousins who came later, left a better paper trail, wound up with the family Bible, or--for you genetic genealogists--sport the Y-DNA you're looking for. Why not get a cup of hot chocolate and that favorite robe and curl up for an evening of immigrant-surfing?
Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, co-author (with Ann Turner) of the recently released Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree (as well as In Search of Our Ancestors, Honoring Our Ancestors and They Came to America), can be contacted through www.genetealogy.com and www.honoringourancestors.com.
Upcoming Events
- Middlesex Genealogical Society
(January 29, 2005, Darien, CT)
- Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society
(February 12, 2005, Pittsburgh, PA)
- Fairfax Genealogical Society
(March 12, 2005, Vienna, VA)
- Lancaster Family History Conference
(April 1-2, 2005, Lancaster, PA)
- Central Jersey Genealogical Club
(April 12, 2005, Mercerville, NJ)
- Ohio Genealogical Society Conference
(April 14-16, 2005, Akron, OH)
- Oklahoma Genealogical Society Spring Seminar
(April 30, 2005, Oklahoma City, OK)
- Orange County Genealogical Society
(May 14, 2005, Goshen, NY)
- New York Genealogical and Biographical Society
(June 18, 2005, New York, NY)
- Iowa Genealogical Society Annual Fall Conference
(October 6-8, 2005, Clive, IA)
- Monmouth County Genealogical Society
(November 13, 2005, NJ)
Details and links to upcoming events.
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Ancestry Quick Tip Jamboree
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Have a great day!
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Cemetery Tips
My husband and I began to use binoculars in our cemetery searches. It's possible to do quite a few rows of stones at once this way. The downside is that in older cemeteries, many of the stones can be difficult to read. However the binoculars can be a time saver. We also try to each cover different sections rather than working the same area together.
We also look for the oldest visitor at the cemetery to ask questions about the names for which we are searching. An elderly gentleman at one cemetery directed us to another small family burying ground a few miles away. This one was located in the country beyond a meadow behind a barn off the main road, and was literally filled with folks for whom we were searching. We did ask permission at the farmhouse to walk across the meadow. We later learned that this cemetery was unknown at that time to the local historical society.
Louise Hawley
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