Do You Think Your Family Name Was Changed On Ellis Island?

This is one of the myths which is dismissed if you visit Ellis and get the tour. First of all, your name was entered in the ship's registry when you left England or the continent. It was spelled correctly there. Before you reached Ellis, the ship's arrival was anticipated by telegram through the transAtlantic cable. Immigration officials who spoke your language would be on hand to record your name, in your language as it had been entered on the ship's registry.

After this, you left the island. Upon reaching the mainland, the immigrant would decide to or be encouraged to change the family name. Since there were no records on the level of today's Social Security, tax id and so forth, it was easy to assume a new identity. ...but this did not happen on Ellis Island.

Ours was changed; an uncle who came here before my grandfather kept the original name, the rest were changed. Uncle came through Ellis, grandfather through Boston.

My maternal grandfather's name was changed when he came through Nova Scotia. Don't know why, since the original one was only 6 letters and easy to pronounce.

I doubt it.

I don't know when or where, but it was definitely changed at some point.

It was "too Irish"

My family's name was not changed when the immigrated, but it did change for half of my father's family when the hospitals where they were born misspelled my father's and his brother's names. No change in the names of his two sisters, however.

I think hospital misspellings/re-naming were likely almost as common as those at the immigration gatekeepers. My mom's first name is misspelled on my birth certificate (Lord instead of Lora) and her family had been here for centuries. When they told her it would cost money to correct it she told them where to go--it was their mistake and they should fix it for free.

Recently I checked out some of those trace your ancestry sites and found multiple spellings for the names of my grandmother and grandfather--ie, in one census the name was spelled xxyzski vs. xyyyysky in the next.

Lots of reasons why names have been changed, revised over the years.

Mine was changed at some point in the old country from Ó Scolaidhe to O'Scully to Scully. From what I understand names were pretty fluid in the day and often got changed for a variety of reasons.

But I agree, not on Ellis Island.

Not Ellis Island. I once heard that in their later years of life many older immigrants remember the whole first year or two of trying to fit in as "Ellis Island." Other's just may have misremembered when their name was changed. As Jersey jack pointed out, the manifests were filled out in Europe, where the people spoke the language and were familiar with the "foreign" names.

I remember looking for my great-grandfather, but I couldn't find the exact name. The last name was there, but there were no Franks listed. I did find a Francesco of the same age and from the same town, they even had a picture of the ship! I asked grandma, and she said Francesco was her father's name before he got here, though in her defense she didn't accuse Ellis Island of changing it. Well, according to Ellis Island his name was still Franciso after he got here, so he must have changed it here, probably to sound more American. He also had a sister, Angela, who had immigrated here a few years after him. Except according to Ellis Island she was Angiola on her arrival.

On an interesting side note, my husband's grandfather and great-grandfather shared the same last name. But on their original social security application forms (available through the FOIA) they spelled the last name differently. The great-grandfather was from the old country, and his all caps block print shows a limited level of education. His son, my husband's grandfather, who filled out the form on the same day, used a very neat script.

I dunno. A friend of mine, along with his parents (MDs and Professors at NYU) would swear on a stack of Bibles, or I guess in their case Torahs, that an Immigration officer at Ellis Island had so much trouble with their Russian name the grand parents were arbitrarily given the name Rosenberg, the name of the family in front of them at Ellis Island. The manifest might have been in Cyrillic script.

Another friend, a militant ABC (American Born Chinese) swears that all the variations of Lee (Lem, Liu, etc) were the result of mess ups at Angel Island in SF. Her husband whose name is Jiuliani swears all the variations including the famous Rudy Giuliani are all Ellis Island (or maybe steamship company ) spellings of the same name.

I found changes.

For years I researched and developed the Berkeley family tree which includes thousands of people. Berkeley and even Berkley are from England, and two Berkeley’s were sent over to be governors’ of the colonies for the king, well before that 1776 thing. One of the areas assigned is now North and South Carolina and Georgia. The other one is here and two guys ran it, Carteret and Berkeley.

Now in my research I found a lot of living Berkeley’s that I traced back to Ellis Island, One of them contacted me to link up data. I found him, however, had to inform him that his true family name was Berkowitz, which was changed to Berkeley on entry to the US.

We still do not know why or who did it.

Later,
The UPS Store
George

jerseyjack said:

This is one of the myths which is dismissed if you visit Ellis and get the tour. First of all, your name was entered in the ship's registry when you left England or the continent. It was spelled correctly there. Before you reached Ellis, the ship's arrival was anticipated by telegram through the transAtlantic cable. Immigration officials who spoke your language would be on hand to record your name, in your language as it had been entered on the ship's registry.

After this, you left the island. Upon reaching the mainland, the immigrant would decide to or be encouraged to change the family name. Since there were no records on the level of today's Social Security, tax id and so forth, it was easy to assume a new identity. ...but this did not happen on Ellis Island.

But what if there were no letters for how your name was spelled?

eta: translation of certain Cyrillic letters can vary somewhat...

bobk said:

Her husband whose name is Jiuliani swears all the variations including the famous Rudy Giuliani are all Ellis Island (or maybe steamship company ) spellings of the same name.

My mother's family name was changed from Guiliano to Julian. Her family came through Ellis Island where the name was preserved...though I believe a misspelling occured there...the name is properly spelled Giuliano. When her family was faced with dealing with prejudice her grandfather changed the name here in the New Country. Most people I have come across with Julian as a last name are really Giuliano, Giuliani, etc.

My grandmother's given name was changed (from Teodolinda to Mary), but none of the family surnames were changed, at least to my knowledge. My grandparents all emigrated here in the early 1900s and were alive to tell me about it when I was in college, so I think they'd have told me had anything more extensive been changed. Nana didn't really mind the change, since her middle name was Maria anyway.

My great grandfather changed his family name from Bulgar to something that he was told was "American." He changed it to Goldberg.

cody said:

...Teodolinda to Mary....

:O
Now THAT'S a CHANGE!!!

1 letter was omitted from my great grandfather's name at Ellis Island. He tried to have it corrected on the spot but was told to wait in yet another never ending line. He looked at the line and said to himself "close enough" and spent the rest of his life omitting 1 letter. 1 Letter was added to my great grandmother's name on my mother's side and she too said "eh close enough" and kept it moving.

My family's name was apparently changed back in Ireland to make it look more English/less Irish. I always had to spell it for people because it resembled a couple of more common surnames.

My mother's family name was quite unusual and her grandfather acted as "name police" to make sure that people Americanizing their names (often by dropping a 'ski' from the end) did not end up with that name and appear to be part of the family.

I have noticed, in looking at census records on line, that the people who have transcribed them for digitizing have not always gotten the names right. One of my husband's ancestors is David and I can see on the image of the written record that it does indeed say David, but the transcriber saw it as Dana.

lizziecat said:

My great grandfather changed his family name from Bulgar to something that he was told was "American." He changed it to Goldberg.

Same here! My great-grandfather Anachovitz was told that Gingold was a good American name. Gevalt.

our family had dropped the ski as well

The real Chef Boyardee came through Ellis Island. the name shown on the ledger is his original birth name, Ettore Boiardi. If they were switching names to make them sound more American, I think his would certainly have been one of them.

marylago said:

jerseyjack said:

This is one of the myths which is dismissed if you visit Ellis and get the tour. First of all, your name was entered in the ship's registry when you left England or the continent. It was spelled correctly there. Before you reached Ellis, the ship's arrival was anticipated by telegram through the transAtlantic cable. Immigration officials who spoke your language would be on hand to record your name, in your language as it had been entered on the ship's registry.

After this, you left the island. Upon reaching the mainland, the immigrant would decide to or be encouraged to change the family name. Since there were no records on the level of today's Social Security, tax id and so forth, it was easy to assume a new identity. ...but this did not happen on Ellis Island.

But what if there were no letters for how your name was spelled?

eta: translation of certain Cyrillic letters can vary somewhat...

Then your name would have been entered using the characters of the native language. Again, there were interviewers who knew the language.

perfectly_cromulent said:

our family had dropped the ski as well

I knew a family with the last name of Slutski. They very wisely chose to keep the "ski" on their last name. Even so, I can still imagine what the girls went through in middle school.

Ellis Island was the entry point for immigration between 1898 and 1924. If your relatives came before or after this interval, they didn't come through Ellis Island. Also, the only immigrants who were processed through Ellis Island were the ones whose passage was in steerage. The boats would dock at Ellis Island, and the passangers in steerage debarked through a gangplank. Passangers in first class and in other cabin classes remained on board until the ship docked at one of the city piers. So my grandmother, who arrived in 1900 on a tourist visa, travelling in a cabin, simply walked off the ship and into the arms of her brother, who was waiting on the pier. Immigrants who arrived befor 1898 were processed through Castle Garden, in downtown Manhattan.

My Mother's Mother's (Irish) name was changed by shortening it to make it more anglicized.

I know of several persons of Polish descent whose names were changed by (presumably whimsical) persons at Ellis who gave then Irish names.

Following ship's registry as to names was probably the rule but I'm sure the lower level Ellis employees saw this as an opportunity to helpl persons or for fun.

My grandfather's name was changed when he came here, but he did not come through Ellis Island. So it was done in some places, and may have been done on Ellis Island too, just not enough to have left evidence.

scully said:

Mine was changed at some point in the old country from Ó Scolaidhe to O'Scully to Scully. From what I understand names were pretty fluid in the day and often got changed for a variety of reasons.

But I agree, not on Ellis Island.

I love that Scully! Did you know that O Scolaidhe means son of the scholar? (I'm sure you do, as you are aware of the history). How cool is that!

My MOL handle is actually from Ceide Fields, which is near where I grew up in Ireland. It is the site of one of the earliest farms known to mankind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceide_Fields

jerseyjack said:

marylago said:

jerseyjack said:

This is one of the myths which is dismissed if you visit Ellis and get the tour. First of all, your name was entered in the ship's registry when you left England or the continent. It was spelled correctly there. Before you reached Ellis, the ship's arrival was anticipated by telegram through the transAtlantic cable. Immigration officials who spoke your language would be on hand to record your name, in your language as it had been entered on the ship's registry.

After this, you left the island. Upon reaching the mainland, the immigrant would decide to or be encouraged to change the family name. Since there were no records on the level of today's Social Security, tax id and so forth, it was easy to assume a new identity. ...but this did not happen on Ellis Island.

But what if there were no letters for how your name was spelled?

eta: translation of certain Cyrillic letters can vary somewhat...

Then your name would have been entered using the characters of the native language. Again, there were interviewers who knew the language.

But different branches of the family had their name translated differently...

@ceidefields: Cool! Thanks for the link!

And:
'The site is the most extensive Stone Age site in the world and contains the oldest known field systems in the world'

...talk about a pedigree:
'five and a half thousand years'!!!

But different branches of the family had their name translated differently...

Once you left the island, there was nothing to prevent changing a name. Also remember that many of the earlier Ellis immigrants were illiterate and had no idea how to write anything, let alone there name.

Do you recall reading about instructions to "make your mark" (sign with an X) ?

As an experiment, I looked up the last name of a friend who also believes her family's name was changed at Ellis Island. There is NO record of her last name at all in their registry. Not one single passanger. This could be for a number of reasons, but like my great grandfather (who only changed his first name) her family's name was likely changed after Ellis Island, so the orignial name would still be shown in their records. Had their family name been changed at Ellis Island, the new name should be reflected in their records.