Meet the Family
by Mitch Stone, the Accidental Expert
Many times I have imagined my great-grandparents standing in a long line in a great top-lit hall, clutching bags containing their few possessions. With them are their children, including my grandparents, surrounded by countless families just like them. So it was when they arrived in this country 100 years ago, stepping off a ship onto their first sample of American soil, Ellis Island.
For a more than fifty year period beginning in 1892, tens of millions of immigrants from all parts of the globe shuffled through the corridors of Ellis Island, the world's most famous portal, seeking a better life. And for the most part they found it, if not for themselves, then for the generations that followed.
The immense immigration center may have closed to the huddled masses in 1954, but on April 17 the doors of Ellis Island were thrown open once again, this time to a flood of their grateful descendants. On this day, a database covering the records of 22 million Ellis Island immigrants debuted online, at www.ellisislandrecords.org.
It's the culmination of a massive seven-year effort by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, enlisting 12,000 dedicated volunteer transcribers, mainly members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the monetary support of private and corporate sponsors. Now, 5.6 million volunteer hours and $22 million later, a remarkable gift has been bestowed on genealogists and historical researchers.
The scale and scope of immigration to the United States during the peak years at Ellis Island staggers our present imaginations. To a researcher, finding one or a handful among so many presented a virtually impossible task. Until last month, locating records of an immigrant's arrival in the United States through Ellis Island required the tedious review of miles of microfilm -- with no promise of success.
The new online database doesn't entirely recalculate the odds, but for those attempting to connect with their own first Americans, hope has been renewed in grand fashion.
The largest single obstacle to finding family members remains the vast numbers involved. Immigrants by the tens of millions disembarked at Ellis Island, and perhaps 100 million living Americans can trace their lineage to an individual who passed through this single immigration center.
Predictably, the response to the sudden appearance of this information on the Internet was a sort of genealogical frenzy, rapidly overwhelming the Ellis Island Foundation's servers with search requests. During the first two weeks, many, if not most, prospective family researchers were greeted by almost nonstop "too busy" notices and server errors.
The Foundation relieved some of the overload by adding servers recently, but failures to process search requests remain common. True to the experience of our Ellis Island ancestors, waiting and anticipation seem to go hand-in-hand.
But the rewards can be well worth the effort. With a bit of luck and determination, a surname search will reveal names, ages, and dates of arrival. Add a bit more luck, and the cooperation of the Foundation's servers, and an image of the original hand-written ship's manifest, and perhaps even a photograph of the ship itself, can be retrieved.
Since I can trace three of my four grandparents through Ellis Island, and all eight great-grandparents, I was anxious to dig in. After many days bucking overloaded servers, I discovered my father's mother's family setting foot in the United States for the first time on April 25, 1915, having made the crossing on the New York, sailing from Liverpool. My great-grandfather first arrived four years earlier, on the steamship Adriatic.
As for the balance of my immigrant family, they remain sitting on suitcases in that huge hall, awaiting the official rubber stamp that made me possible. And thanks to technology -- and generosity -- beyond their imagining, I may yet have an opportunity to meet them.
14 May 2001 |
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