The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
Immigrants' paths can be hard to track
This column was published Oct. 15, 2000
At our roots, we're all immigrants from somewhere and that probably even includes Kennewick Man. Too bad there were no immigration records 9,500 years or more ago.
Leave DNA testing and carbon dating to the scientists, genealogists demand records and the more official, the better.
If you are trying to trace your beginnings "across the waters," as they used to say, emigration and immigration records abound. You look for emigration records in the country an ancestor left. Immigration records are in the country they settled in.
Some lucky genealogists get to chase generations of ancestors through a multitude of nations before the family finally settled down.
The unlucky researches get bogged down in the United States and can't get out of the country. That's my case with my paternal lines - the Days and the Barneses - and I haven't personally done the research on my many maternal lines that cross the water, many of which go further back than colonization of America.
My Charnock line goes back to 1355, which gets close to the beginning of time as far as documentable genealogy is concerned. Thanks be to the genealogists who preceded me!
But I digress.
If we're lucky, oral tradition tells us where to dig for our foreign roots.
If we aren't that fortunate, we'll come upon them in due time. One of the most common ways is to find a foreign root entwined in census records.
Beginning in 1850, Federal Census records indicate birth places by country or state.
Beginning in 1880, censuses also recorded birth places for both parents of each person enumerated.
This information provides general clues about where to look next. Immigration records, of course, are primary.
Ellis Island has received so much publicity that many Americans mistakenly identify it with their ancestors' immigration, although it was but one of many points of immigration.
Ellis Island was the portal for an estimated 12 million immigrants, but there were many other major immigration points, including Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco - to name just a few. But even if your immigrant ancestors entered through New York, they weren't processed at Ellis if they came prior to Jan. 1, 1892.
Immigrants who came third class - steerage - to New York City between 1855 and 1924 were processed at several different places. If they immigrated between Aug. 1, 1855, and April 18, 1890, they were processed at Castle Garden; April 19, 1890, to Dec. 31, 1891, at Barge Office; Jan. 1, 1892, to June 13, 1897, at Ellis Island; June 14, 1897, to Dec. 16, 1900, at Barge Office; Dec. 17, 1900, to 1924 at Ellis Island.
If the subject interests you, read Myra Vanderpool Gormley's column on the subject on the RootsWeb page. You will find it at www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/syft/curcolumn.htm.
Efforts are under way to create a genealogical database containing the names of all immigrants processed at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.
Until that project is completed, genealogists will have to make do with ship passenger lists, which can be found on microfilm at the National Archives, including its regional branches, and at the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.
These microfilms can be borrowed by interlibrary loan at local LDS Family History Centers. Many large public and university libraries also have them.
If you're just getting your feet wet in immigrant genealogy, you should start by reading a bit about the subject.
The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, by Loretto Szucs and Sandra Luebking has a section worth reading. Also, be sure to check voluminous references in the index.
As always, your local genealogical society likely will have valuable resources.