Talk:Ellis Island Special

Complete nonsense
Wow! A whole article based on anecdotes and works of fiction. Not a single reference to anything substantial, such as a book or article that actually describes the immigration process.

Surnames were changed during the larger immigration process, but never at Ellis Island. How do we know this? Because there was no way for the immigration officials to do that! People getting off the boat weren't registered in some large database as they might be today; they were simply matched against their entry in the ship's manifest (which was prepared around the time of departure) and checked off. The only writing down of surnames occurred when someone was detained, usually for reasons of health. For them, a separate list was prepared, but the names were copied off the manifests.

Can someone find a copy of a form that would have been used to change a surname? There is no evidence I know of that such a thing exists.

Emigrants sometimes changed their surnames when they bought steamship tickets, sometimes when they had arrived in the US, sometimes when they declared their intention to become citizens and sometimes when they actually became citizens. It was no big deal to change one's name in those days, especially if one didn't have a birth certificate or similar document on file in this country.

Let's get rid of this ASAP, please.

RogerLustig (talk) 14:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I've added additional material and sources to attempt to address your concerns. Thanks for your thoughts. Infoman99 (talk) 22:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * OK--I'll accept that it's a sandwich. But you haven't yet given me a single piece of evidence that names could be changed at Ellis Island, let alone that they actually were.  What were the tired clerks supposed to be doing?  What forms did they use?  Who else ever saw what they wrote?  We have hundreds of thousands of ship manifests, tens of thousands of detention records, but nothing where a clerk actually had an opportunity to change a name.


 * My concerns cannot be addressed by piling on the anecdotal "evidence", especially the 2nd- or 3rd-hand unsupported assertions that are basically asides in a discussion about something else. Only something written by someone who shows any sign of having investigated how Ellis Island worked, and what happened there daily, can count as evidence.


 * No number of repetitions of an urban legend can make it true. RogerLustig (talk) 23:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The article attempts to convey that that myth of of the Ellis Island-changed family name, while wrong in details, is popular. Although incorrect as to the place and method by which the family name changed, it has developed into common folklore and is regularly expressed and written about, and even has its own phrase.


 * The citations are to show the popularity of 'blaming' the name change on Ellis Island officials, not that the idea is accurate. I welcome additional wording to clarify that it's incorrect. Infoman99 (talk) 01:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

My apologies. Didn't read the revision closely enough. RogerLustig (talk) 02:40, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Is the section's OP claiming that the entire concept is the myth, or simply the "at Ellis Island" part? My dad has genealogical records for our family that go back to when my ancestors were in Russia and the name is definitely changed, though I couldn't possibly say whether it was at Ellis Island or not. As far as the term goes, Ellis Island is basically metonymy here. 2601:645:C001:D580:59F4:8FEE:3790:AEE1 (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2016 (UTC)