Castle Garden, Ellis Island, and All Other Points of Entry

[CBHagman]

I was online this morning looking for more information on immigrant ancestors and stopped by the Castle Garden website again, where, I'm pleased to say, there's a bit more detail in the search forms than I recall.

So if you have a relative who may have come through the Port of New York prior to the opening of Ellis Island, stop by here, and remember that you might need to use alternate spellings and wild cards in your searches:

http://www.castlegarden.org

On another website, I found a harrowing details about arrival in the New World and why Castle Garden was put to use as a station:

http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/ia/entrywayAtCastleGarden.aspx

Previously in New York, where the bulk of U.S. immigrants landed, ships arrived in any number of scattered docks. Here, the immigrants often received their only welcome from thieves and opportunists waiting to take advantage of the often bewildered arrivals. Harper’s Weekly described the conditions facing an immigrant by stating, “It was well for him if, after having been robbed of all he had, he was not beaten to death…” The Board of Emigration Commissioners for New York decided that a centralized landing depot would provide the best solution. In their 1855 report, the Board declared the benefits of Castle Garden: “First. – To the emigrants…In the greater safety of their effects.”

Castle Garden was, of course, succeeded by Ellis Island:

http://www.ellisisland.org/

I've made extensive use of that site in the past, and was particularly pleased to see the ship manifests had been digitized, the better to look at actual records of your relatives' journey, and to put the lie to The Godfather II version of things and also help researchers catch transcription errors in the database.

There are also ship images!

I've not needed to use any resources pertaining to Angel Island, but in my searches I found the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation:


http://aiisf.org/

To other DUers, what websites do you employ for finding ships, immigration records, etc.?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I found my Amalia REIMANN at Castle Garden just 2 days ago!

http://www.castlegarden.org/quick_search_detail.php?p_id=4075364
It wasn't there the last time I had searched, and now I have more than just "Hesse" for her origins

thanks for the links!

[Sherman A1]

2. Thanks for posting

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. I only have two or three ancestors who emigrated to the US after independence

one was from the north of England and appears on a register of British subjects in Ontario County, New York in 1812; one was born in Ireland (probably Ulster) around 1828, and one was from Cork and emigrated to the US during the Irish famine. I haven't been able to find any records for either of the Irish immigrants through Castle Garden, and for all I know they came to North America via Canada (which was a major destination for Irish immigrants), so I've looked at most of the resources available for Irish passenger lists for them...it doesn't help that one has a very common surname (Dillon) and one has a surname which may appear with multiple variant spellings, so it's not an easy task at all.

[PatSeg]

4. Thanks

[csziggy]

5. Even if your ancestors immigrated before the times those ports were used

You may find information at those locations.

For instance, my Welsh ancestor immigrated to the US in 1872 so I didn't expect to find him after that. But I was searching anyway to try out the Ellis Island site. I found that he and his wife visited Wales in 1910 - something that my Dad never knew.

It's surprising how often people did travel back to visit family - much more often than we might think.

[CBHagman]

6. Thank you for the tip.

I've heard that Italian immigrants in particular were known to go back and forth, and then of course there's the phenomenon of bringing the family over in contingents, which is what happened with my Ellis Island relatives.

[shanti]

7. my french ancestors

arrived at castle gardens on the SS Denmark in 1875. they were part of a contingent of waldensian church members who (originally from the italian piedmont region) left uruguay for the U.S. i've been told that that the women sewed their money into their skirts to avoid detection. after arriving in NY, they boarded a train to monett, missouri, and purchased land. many ancestors still live there, but a large number moved to northern and southern california in the early 1900's.

my irish and some german ancestors arrived at castle gardens around 1848. everyone else (mostly english) either came through canada, or arrived way before that. i don't believe anyone came through ellis island...

good stuff, thanks for posting!