Re: Ellis Island passenger arrivals (Czernowitz)

Bernie Levy wrote:
>
> Bruce (and Stephen),
>
> I used the various EllisIsland options, from the results screens, in attempts to
> get details on passenger records, text and original manifests, etc. Sometimes
> response was fairly rapid and sometimes it "never" came back and I cancelled.

These responses (or lack thereof) are from the ellis island site itself
and not from mine. So all I can advise you to do is try again later
when you find that their site is not responding.

> One of the things I found, which you probably are aware of, was many variations
> of spellings of towns. For instance, there were a couple of odd misspellings of
> Czernowitz that I noticed which probably means they didn't come up in your
> searches.

If you are using my blue search form, then you can search for names that
"sound like" the town name that you want. That way you get by the
misspelling problem.

> In my surname searches, the town of Mihowa was spelled correctly for several
> hits but as Milhowa for my BURG search. Also, Zablatow came up all kinds of
> ways. I can understand this from looking at the handwriting in the manifests.
> Some of it almost looks like Russian script rather than English. Who to write
> to, if anyone, to try to get records corrected?

Forget about that. There are many error in transcription in the Ellis
Island database. It would be a major task for the volunteers to correct
them all. And just going through all the e-mails that they must be
receiving regarding errors is a massive amount of work -- trying to
decipher real transcription errors from errors on the manifest itself.
Let's just be thankful that they put the whole database online, errors
and all. If you've uncovered an error, that means that you were able to
find the person you wanted and that is what is important.

> Is the only way to try to limit search by country to check "ethnicity" as
> Austrian, Ukrainian, etc.? My towns are sometimes shown as Austria, Roumania,
> even Russia -- depending on year of departure/arrival.

Certainly. On my search form, check off all ethnicities that might
apply.

> Do you think that the EllisIsland site will ever have records older than 1892 or
> newer than 1924?

See question 107 on my frequently-asked-questions page.

> Another thing I don't understand about the search results, particularly the
> original manifest. Usually it comes up with a page that shows each person's
> info regarding how much money they have, who paid for the trip, who are they
> coming to see or who sponsored, etc. Supposedly their name should be on an
> adjoining page but usually I just get the afidavit signed by the captain.

If you don't see the first half of the manifest when you go to the
"next" page, try going to the previous one. Some of the rolls were
scanned in backwards.

-- Steve Morse

Received on 2002-07-03 11:56:31