Why your family name may not have changed at Ellis Island

A lot of families tell it the same way. Great-grandfather stepped off the boat, an official couldn't manage the name, and he walked out with a shorter one. It's a good story, and it has been told at many a holiday table. The records tell a gentler one. A name was very rarely changed at Ellis Island. Most changes happened later, and often the family made them.

Where the passenger list was made

The list an inspector held at Ellis Island wasn't written there. The USCIS History Office explains that passenger lists were created abroad, beginning near the immigrant's home when he bought his ticket. The National Archives says much the same. Most of these lists were filled out by the ship's master or the shipping company before the ship left Europe.

The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation describes the manifest as a set of questions asked of each passenger at departure, with the answers written across one line, a little like a spreadsheet. From 1907 the manifest grew to two pages, with more questions.

So the spelling on the manifest came from the ticket office and the port of departure. Nobody in New York wrote it.

What happened at inspection

Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892. Marian L. Smith, the immigration service's historian, wrote in the National Archives' magazine Prologue that the manifest was the foundation of the whole inspection. The inspector checked the person standing in front of him against the line already written for them.

Inspectors weren't free to rename anyone, either. According to USCIS, they could change a name or other details only if the immigrant asked, or if the inspection showed the original information was wrong.

Interpreters were part of the job

People often picture an inspector who couldn't understand a word. USCIS says that from about 1892 to 1924 a third of the inspectors were foreign-born, and they spoke an average of three languages. They were assigned by language, and the station kept a large staff of interpreters, with contract interpreters brought in for rarer languages.

The National Park Service notes that many interpreters were immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants, and that they had to pass a civil service exam in each language. Fiorello LaGuardia worked there as an interpreter from 1907 to 1910.

How names really changed

USCIS says names changed more often after arrival, as teachers, landlords, employers and judges wrote them down in English, and as immigrants adjusted their own names to make work and school easier. Some picked a new name altogether. Most who changed their names did it within their first five years in the country, and from 1906 the naturalization process had to record a name change. The Library of Congress puts the wider point simply. Surnames sometimes changed within a person's lifetime, and sometimes other people or the law imposed them.

When an older relative said the name was changed "at Ellis Island," USCIS suggests they may have meant the whole experience of arriving and settling in, rather than one clerk at one desk.

Spelling played its part as well. A clerk wrote what he heard, and an old handwritten list can be hard to read today. An article on the Foundation's website tells how Bob Hope, born Leslie Townes Hope, couldn't be found in its arrival records when he was to be honored at Ellis Island. He was there all along, indexed as "Leslie Hape," and looking at the original, you can see how the transcriber read it that way.

A sample family's story (fictional)

Our fictional sample family, the Does, has its own version. In the sample book we made to show how our books work, the Kowalczyk side has always said the name was once Kowalczykowski and that an official at Ellis Island cut it short. The made-up records answer it. Jan Kowalczyk's marriage in his home village in 1901, two years before he sailed, already spells the name Kowalczyk. So does his 1903 manifest from the steamship Konstancja, filled in before he ever saw New York. The town census of 1910 writes it "Kowalchik," and that's the only record that strays.

The Does and their records are invented. The trail is the kind worth following in your own family, though.

Records worth checking

The passenger manifest. The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation's free passenger search covers arrivals at the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. Search for the name your ancestor was born with. The Foundation's guide gives the example of a "Frank" from Italy, who will likely be listed as Francesco, or as Franz if he came from Germany, or Franciszek from Poland. It also suggests leaving a margin of three to five years on the arrival year and the age.

Naturalization papers. Before September 27, 1906, any "court of record" (municipal, county, state or federal) could naturalize, the National Archives explains, so older papers may sit in a county courthouse or a state archive. The process usually took at least five years. A person filed a declaration of intention after two years and a petition three years later. For naturalizations from September 27, 1906, to March 31, 1956, USCIS keeps duplicate copies in its Certificate Files, which you can request through the USCIS Genealogy Program. Papers from after 1906 may show a name change, though not the reason for it.

The census. The 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 censuses asked the year a person came to the United States, and whether they were an alien, had filed first papers or were naturalized, written "Al," "Pa" or "Na." The 1920 census also asked the year of naturalization. Those answers can point you to the right manifest and the right court. A National Archives archivist advises taking the immigration year with a grain of salt, since people were often remembering it decades later. In one case she describes, an ancestor gave 1882 in one census and 1884 in the next, and the family turned out to have arrived in 1883.

Across those census years you can often watch a name settle into its American spelling, one record at a time.

Is there a name-change story in your family? We'd love to hear how it's told, and which name you think came off the boat.

At Root & Quill we research and write hardcover family history books, and we follow a name through every spelling the records give it. You'll find examples in our Sample Pages and the options on Books & Pricing, and our free Family Story Starter guide is a good companion if you'd like to start on your own. If you'd rather have help tracing your family's arrival, a free 30-minute consultation is an easy first step.

Book a free 30-minute consultation

Picture: Lewis W. Hine, Italian family on the ferry leaving Ellis Island, 1905. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.