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Unlocking the Secrets of Ellis Island | |
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Tracing Your Immigrant Roots | |
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Visiting Ellis Island | |
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Unlocking the Secrets of Ellis Island
Computerizing this archive has meant scanning microfilmed copies of ship passenger logs ("manifests"), printing paper copies, then painstakingly hand-typing data—not once, but twice, by two people, whose input is then reviewed for any discrepancies by a third. Volunteers, almost all of them members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), are doing the work in their homes. To date, the project has consumed more than 2 million volunteer-hours.
The volunteers must actually extract 25 million records from the microfilm, coding them so the names of ships' crew and non-immigrant passengers can be sorted out. That will leave entries on 17 million immigrants who entered through the Port of New York from 1892 to 1924, the peak years of Ellis Island (including first- and second-class passengers who bypassed the Ellis Island ordeal). Each person's entry will contain up to 11 facts, selected from about 35 possible blanks for information on a typical manifest.
"We chose those that are unique enough to identify the person and with a high consistency in being there," explains Wayne Metcalfe, director of the field services and support division for the LDS' family-history department. "For instance, while it would be wonderful to include the immigrant's date of birth, that's on only a small percentage of the manifests."
When the database goes live, you will be able to find your ancestor's name, ship name and port of origin, arrival date, gender, age on arrival, marital status, nationality and last residence. Because the manifests will be searchable for the first time ever, you'll also be able to identify the right manifest to study further. You can get a replica of the passenger list and even a photo of the ship. "In turn," Metcalfe adds, "these can be a bridge to records in the originating country."
For more on retracing your roots at Ellis Island, see the premiere issue of Family Tree Magazine.
More than 100 million Americans have at least one ancestor who came through Ellis Island. Soon the process of tracing those immigrant ancestors will be much easier, as a $22.5 million, four-year project to computerize Ellis Island's records is completed. The records, now available only on microfilm at special archives, will be searchable on the Internet and at special kiosks in a new American Family Immigration History Center on the island. The target date for completion, according to Stephen A. Briganti, president and CEO of The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, is late 2000.
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