A myth that names were changed at Ellis Island
or
A myth that names were not changed at Ellis Island
=============================
Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
Another myth is that many immigrants had their names
changed at Ellis Island because they could not converse with English-speaking immigration officials. However, a close examination of government records soon dispels this American legend. Each immigrant carried documentation written in their native language by authorities in "the old country." These documents always listed the complete name of each immigrant, along with details of their nationality and place of origin. =============================
Name Changes at Ellis Island: Fact or Fiction?
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, 13 May 2001.
For admittance into the United States, (a) an immigrant had to have proof of identity. This form was filled out in the homeland by a local clerk who used the native language.
Name spellings on these documents would logically conform to local spellings. Next, when an immigrant purchased a ticket for passage, exit visas and other paperwork had to be examined by ticket agents before a ticket could be issued. The surname would have been accurately recorded at that time as well.
=============================
IF ANY IMMIGRANT HAD A REASON TO FORGE DOCUMENTS
(a) This was in the age before governments had documented people.
1 Any immigrant could have presented any document they had forged.
2 Any immigrant could have had some one else go into the office, get the documentation and use it for their own families.
They did not go into an office, get the documents and jump on the ship. These trips were planned. The trip to the office to get papers would have taken place before the departure date.
Any one who wanted to immigrate would have had time to bring the papers home and get their own version fabricated.
When they walked up the boarding plank, the ship's official had a manifest with nothing but names.
The immigrant could have got on with the assigned papers and got off with their own version.
3) It would be a snap to bribe clerks to write any thing the persons wanted them to write.
4) This was the age before government documentation of the populations. The clerks knew nothing about the potential immigrants except what they were told.
Today with all the checks put in place, people can and do forge documents to get into other countries. It would have been child's play forging documents to get through Ellis Island.
=============================
The ship's captain or designated representative would examine each passenger's paperwork. Immigrants would not be accepted into Ellis Island without proper documentation.
///
The ship's crew would inspect the paper work as they got on.
The ship's crew did nothing, knew nothing about the validity or accuracy of that paperwork.
The ship's crew did nothing to verify any thing that was written on those documents.
The ship's crew did nothing but to check that they did have the boarding documents.
///
The workers at Ellis Island did NOTHING to check the validity of any information written on the documents.
They did not have contact with the travel / government agencies in foreign countries and cross check that information.
The only thing Ellis Island workers did was to ask for the paper work that "appeared" to have been written by the offices in the foreign countries.
The only thing the travel/government offices in those foreign countries had to go by is what ever the applicants brought to their counter.
=============================
The ship's owners went to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the paperwork, including names, places of birth, and travel plans.
///
Tell me how many passengers in which the ship's owners went to the areas where the potential immigrant said they came from and made an investigation with the officials? .. ZERO.
The only thing the ship lines did was to check to see if the borders had the papers issued to them by the office that issued the papers.
In the days before computers, any one could be any one they wanted to be, and they did not finger print applicants and their children.
=============================
The myth of name changes also revolves around the concept that the immigrant was unable to communicate properly with the English-speaking officials at Ellis Island. However, this assumption ignores the fact that officials at Ellis Island employed hundreds of translators who could speak, read, and write the immigrants' native tongues.
Ellis Island officials would then bring in the interpreters to handle the interrogations. The processing time was one to three days.
///
Three days.. 72 hours...
30 hours of sleeping
4 hours of eating / going to the bath room
2 hours replying to the prepared questions and physical exams.. being ran through like cattle
36 hours standing in line
=============================
During this time, each immigrant was questioned about his or her identity, and all of the necessary documentation was examined in detail.
///
The clerks could only examine what was written on the documents, they had no possible way of verifying any information with the officials of the country the immigrant came from.
=============================
Of course, there were a few exceptions to the formality of documentation at Ellis Island, and names may have been changed at these times.
Occasionally, war refugees were admitted into the United States without much documentation, especially in 1945 and 1946.
A few
other immigrants succeeded in falsifying their documents in order to gain admittance when they could not have been admitted under their true identities. Or, a child may have been admitted under the surname of a stepfather.
* Some immigrants changed their names in order to obtain employment
. * Others found it easier to assimilate into American culture if they had American-sounding names
, so they accepted the names their neighbors or schoolteachers used. *
Millions of immigrants had their names changed voluntarily by clerks or schoolteachers who couldn't pronounce or spell the foreign-sounding names. =============================
Of course people like me who write about these things only write from hearsay information we have seen, heard or read.
As for actual people who did come through Ellis Island and who have been interviewed on TV programs and in magazines, it is they who say their family DID have their names changed.
What shall we believe?
a) People who never came through Ellis Island saying immigrants never had their names changed.
b) The people who said they came through Ellis Island and did have their names changed are liars.. or
c) People "Millions" who did come through Ellis Island DID have their names changed?
Note: For more information about Ellis Island name changes, visit the Immigration and Naturalization Service Web site.
=============================
Of course there is no way of knowing how many times European families changed their names of the centuries before there was any Ellis Island.
People in all nations changed their names when they had a reason and before government kept data on the population, changing names was as easy as changing socks.
=============================
From 1892 to 1954, over 12 million immigrants entered the United States from Ellis Island,
///
From 1892... Hmmm in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, that kind of leaves 400 years of people coming to America who were NEVER processed by any immigration inspections.
=============================
Not only did millions change their names at Ellis Island, millions of others changed their names after they crossed the ocean and got into other countries.
We never find out about the average bear because no one bothers to publish their name changes, but famous people are published
Adams Joey ............................. Joseph Abramowitz
Albert Eddie ............................Eddie Heimberger
Allen Woody ............................. Allen Konigsberg
Bacall Lauren .......................... Joan Perske
Barrett Rona ............................Rona Burnstein
Benny Jack ............................. Benny Kubelsky
Berle Milton ........................... Milton Berlinger
Bishop Joey ............................ Joey Gottlieb
Blondell Joan ........................... Rosebud Blustein
Borgnine Ernest .........................Effron Borgnine
Bronson Charles ........................ Charles Buchinsky
Brooks Mel ............................. Melvin Kaminsky
Brothers Joyce ..........................Joyce Bauer
Burns George ........................... Nathan Birnbaum
Cannon Dyan ............................ Samile Friesen
Chrisse Cyd .............................Tula Finklea
Crawford Joan .......................... Lucille Le Sueur
Curtis Tony ............................ Bernie Schwartz
Dangerfield Rodney ......................Jacob Cohen
Douglas Kirk ........................... Isadore Demsky
Dylan Bob ...............................Robert Zimmerman
Fairbanks, Jr Douglas .................. Douglas Ullman
G Edward . Robinson ..................... Emanuel Goldenberg
Garfield John .......................... Jules Garfinkle
Garland Judy ........................... Frances Gumm
Goddard Paulette ....................... Paulette Levy
Gorme Eydie ............................. Edith Gormezano
Gould Elliott ...........................Elliott Goldstein
Grant Cary ............................. Larry Leach
Green Lorne .............................Chaim Leibowiz
Grey Joel .............................. Joel Katz
Hackett Buddy .......................... Leonard Hacker
Holliday Judy .......................... Judith Tuvin
Howard Leslie .......................... Leslie Stainer
Kaye Danny .............................. David Kominsky
King Alan .............................. Irwin Kniberg
King Larry ...............................Larry Zeiger
Lamour Dorothy ......................... Dorothy Kaumeyer
Landers Ann ..............................Esther Friedman
Landon Miehael ......................... Mike Orowitz
Lawrence Steve ......................... Sidney Leibowitz
Lewis Jerry ............................ Joseph Levitch
Linden Hal .............................. Hal Lip****z
Louise Tina ............................. Tina Blacker
Maiden Karl .............................Maiden Sekulovitch
Matthau Walter ......................... Walter Matasschanskayasky
Merman Ethel ........................... Ethel Zimmerman
Murray Jan ............................. Murray Janofsky
Palmer Lilly ........................... Maria Peiser
Parker Eleanor .......................... Ellen Friedlob
Peters Roberta ...........................Roberta Peterman
Pierce Jan .............................. Pincus Perelmuth
Randall Tony ........................... Sidney Rosenberg
Rlvers Joan .............................Joan Molinsky
Shore Dinah ............................ Fanny Rose
St Jill . John .......................... Jill Oppenheim
Wilder Gene ............................. Jerome Silberman
Winters Shelly ......................... Shirley Schrift
Zsa Gabor Zsa ...........................Sara Gabor
Not even the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Through the centuries millions of NON famouse people have changed their family names.
In the past there was no need to go to any court to change your name, all you had to do was change it to any thing you wanted. There were no Social Security numbers, no government birth certificates, no driver's license.. NO government records of the population.
Changing names would be done because people had been in some kind of trouble, they wanted to blend in with the locals, to gain employment or other personal gain.
Watching a PBS program about immigrants in Ohio, they told how they changed their family names to get employment in the 1930s-40s ... and they kept that name until today.
=============================
For centuries before Ellis Island, during the time it did exist ... people have been coming to America from ports from across the sea and by land through Mexico and Canada.
The amount of name changes is a never ending circle. The population of America is from the families of all immigrants. The families who can track part of their ancestors to Ellis Island ... if they have been here a few generations, their ancestors come from many lands and unknown families they can never possibly track.
The only exception is the native Americans which never come off the reservations.
As for any one who thinks they can track their ancestors through family names, they might consider the number of family names documented in a European country say in 1000 AD and compare that with the number today.
Not only do people change their names to a popular one, some times they make up a name that fit's their fancy and take that one.
Santa Claus, Homer Simpson ?
WASHINGTON, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - A man who changed his name to Santa Claus three years ago has successfully registered as a presidential candidate.
Before the government began to document personal data on the public any one could change their names with no legal implications and millions did.
* By the names they gave to offices when they applied for immigration.
* At Ellis Island
* After they got through the port
* Those who were already here or any that existed in the time before the government collected personal data.
There was no such thing as a "legal name", what ever they decided to call themselves was their "legal name"
I think I will name myself Mr Cool
=============================
There were no John Smiths coming from Africa in the bottom of the slavery ships.
When they got here they may have been given a European first name and Jones after the name of the slave owner that bought them.
If their children were sold to Miller, they would be Millers.
=============================
Other than Mexicans millions have came to the US through Mexico.. also through Canada.
If your family has been in the US for generations, then bet you are a composite of ancestors from multiple nations.
Your "family name" might lead you to a trivial fraction of your relatives with the same name, but that is not saying that has always been the name that family went by.