Tracing Family Roots at Ellis Island

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Justified

Justified

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how many of you have family who came over to the US via Ellis Island?

I have been on the Ellis Island website looking up information on my grandmother's *on mothers side*side of the family. I have discovered *more like confirmed* that I am part English. Nice mix of ethnic blood running through my veins:
English, Spanish, Mexican

:up:

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp?MID=05489935500251446848&
 
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I found out that my greatparents came over from Italy via Ellis Island.
They came to America twice. The first time they came they didn't like it here so they went back to Italy. Then they were there for a few years and things were not so goodthere, so they decided to come back to the USA. I wish that I could of known them, but they died before I was born. :sigh:
 
I need to take it upon myself to fully trace my mother's side of the family roots. There is no one in my family keeping up with this information.
 
My great aunt on my mom's side did this a few years ago. She found relatives in Europe and Canada. She's since visted them and they've come here. I should try to look for other parts of my family. My dad's family on his father's side is pretty non-existent but I've always wondered who's out there that we don't know about.
 
My great grandparents on my my mother's fathers side of the family came over from Germany via Ellis Island. I'm not sure but my grandmother's family on my mom's side may have come over from England also. My dad's side of the family is very hard to trace back past the Civil War which my Aunt has been working on. She did find out that one of their distant relatives came here as an endentured servant from Ireland in the 1800's. We know both sides of my fathers family stems from Ireland but we dont know any kind of details or history.
 
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Justified said:
how many of you have family who came over to the US via Ellis Island?

I have been on the Ellis Island website looking up information on my grandmother's *on mothers side*side of the family. I have discovered *more like confirmed* that I am part English. Nice mix of ethnic blood running through my veins:
English, Spanish, Mexican

:up:

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp?MID=05489935500251446848&
Click to expand...

TONS AND TONS, ALL of them, lol! My mom has been tracing our genealogy (her side at least) for years now and when she first started using that site, there were so many people trying to access it that she rarely got on. I think they've fixed it now. The problem we have is that many of the names of my ancestors were changed, "Americanized" when they came through Ellis Island so my mom often spends months searching in vain for one person, trying all possible spellings and phonetic spellings. Thank goodness she's doing this b/c I don't have the patience too and eventually, I can inherit all of her research :)
 
Ellis Island would be easy. My husband had some come through there, but all of mine on both sides were here way before the Civil War, which makes it hard to trace once you get back before the Revolutionary war when the records were not kept well in most places. Also, if you live in the south like I do, some of the courthouses were burned during the Civil War ( I ran into a dead end there once)

Interesting family roots should come up because out of the blue, a cousin I hadn't heard from in 8 years contacted me and gave me the link to his website with pics of my ancestors dating back to the invention of the camera in the 1840's! I was so excited. I never expected to see pics of those people. Seems a lady from another branch of the family had died and left all her pics and Bibles to the library of the town they came from in NC and he found them. It's so cool but so weird to see them, and so exciting to find out who they are. Everybody find out who your ancestors were if you can, it's so much fun and a big thrill to find them.

When you get as far back as I have, the hard part is connecting back to the 'old country', that's one problem you won't have if you had relatives come though Ellis Island because then you know for sure!
 
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I know my dad's side of the family have been in the US (I typed 'here' at first :der: ) since before the Civil War since he said once that he wore some relative's Confederate Uniform to school one day for something. Apart from that, I know NOTHING about my family. I had to do a family tree for school one year, and I don't think I got past my great great grandparents on my dad's side and I don't even know my maternal grandfather's name. I thought he was dead all my life until about three years ago when I found out my aunt had called my dad and stepmom asking for my phone number because my grandfather wanted to contact me. :eek: My mom doesn't speak to anyone in her family, so I haven't had contact with my grandmother, aunt, or cousins on that side of the family since I was about 8, and only then because my dad took me and my brother to see them.
 
meegannie said:
I know my dad's side of the family have been in the US (I typed 'here' at first :der: ) since before the Civil War.
Click to expand...

same with my father's side. i apparently have a great great great great great...uncle who served in the Confederate Army.
 
U2Kitten said:
When you get as far back as I have, the hard part is connecting back to the 'old country', that's one problem you won't have if you had relatives come though Ellis Island because then you know for sure!
Click to expand...

This is true. As annoying as the name changes are, at least there's a record SOMEWHERE, you just have to find it! For the rest, we have corrospondants in the Netherlands that do the research for us, or we trade research back and forth. For example, my mom has some guy in the Netherlands that visits random libraries and city halls for her (like a genealogy bitch, lol) and in turn, we send him record of EVERY person in the US with our last name. Any newspaper articles of new babies, sports scores, ANYTHING with our name, he gets. I can't believe my mother of all people spends so much time with such tedious and frusterating work, but it pays off in the end I guess. I think she's traced our roots back to the 17- and 1600s. Most of her records come from 1) Ellis Island/other ship records 2)other people's research 3)religious documents. Luckily though, my family is entirely Dutch, so it's only a matter of working with two countries.
 
My great great grandfather was in the rebel army. He deserted and hid out like the guy in Cold Mountain. I think I'll sue :p But really he did. I've known it for years. Some people in the family were embarrassed by that. His 3 brothers all got killed but he lived. Good thing since my great grandfather, his son, wasn't born until after the war. If he'd died I wouldn't have existed so I'm glad he deserted.
 
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