First, regarding Legacy, I agree with making the birth name the primary
name, unless the birth document had a clearly obvious error on it.
Regarding Ellis Island, I am puzzled by one thing. Before modern times, I
have never seen any evidence of a document being given to the immigrant or a
document being registered with the government. I'm thinking especially of
the 1895-1905 time frame. What constituted a legal name? Is it possible that
some inspectors strongly suggested (verbally or on a scrap of paper) to the
immigrant that they should use an Americanized name, but that it was then up
to the immigrant to institute that later upon settling into their community?
Initially, that might be done with such things the annual city directories,
the school system, marriage records, censuses, and eventually tax forms and
naturalization. In other words, by what specific mechanism could the
immigration inspector force a name change on an immigrant at Ellis Island?
My own anecdotes:
- My relatives' Italian surnames and given names varied with each year of
the city directory, sometimes Anglicized and sometimes not.
- In one family, the surname of the children was changed by the teachers,
and that stuck, but their father stubbornly refused to change his own name.
Ward
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Seward Sr.
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2019 8:49 PM
To: legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com
Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Surname Changed When Immigrated
The first one you listed is the one that mentions that the Inspectors
would make changes of what they perceived to be errors. You've made my
point.
The others you listed are articles by people who have made the same
assumptions you made. I have interviewed people who came through Ellis
Island who have told me these stories. One Carlo Pietropinto, who had
his name changed by one of the inspectors whose assumed that his named
was really Carlos Pietro Pinto. His family in Italy is known as
Pietropinto. His family here in the US is known as Pinto. Clearly
(because he told me) not his choice.
I can also point to a family (I interviewed them personally) who came
through EI. There names where Salvatore, Nicola, Antonetta,
Pasqualina. The inspectors tried to encourage them to change there
names to Samuel, Ncholas, Anna, and Pauline. They refused.
These this did indeed go on. I'm not sure why so many people suspend
belief in facts and refuse to believe that people at Ellis Island could
possibly make mistakes. It is very important in the Genealogy world
that we not rule out such possibilities, and understand that the
surnames they are looking for could have been changed at Ellis Island.
Encourage them to look at that possibility and think maybe they should
look for different surnames than the ones they are hitting roadblocks on.
You can point to all the blogs you want, but I will take it from those
who were there, and saw this first hand, and told me with their own tongues.
I mean no disrespect. I just think that trying to deny that this
actually happened can discourage people from doing a more creative
search to find ancestors that they might not otherwise find.
Christopher
On 11/23/2019 3:16 PM, Laura Johnson wrote:
the so called ledgers were the ships manifests - those were done at the
port of departure.
Here are a few good articles to let you know what really happened
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-did-ellis-island-officials-really-change-names-immigrants-180961544/
https://www.genealogy.com/articles/research/88_donna.html
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/04/29/ellis-island-names/
On 11/23/2019 3:06 PM, Christopher Seward Sr. wrote:
Marie,
I would disagree with that first statement. In my years of doing
research, I have heard stories where the workers at Ellis Island entered
names into the ledgers incorrectly. If they were unable to discern the
name from the ships manifest, they would of write down the names as THEY
understood the passengers. I have examples in my own family where a
Braun from Prussia was listed as Brown because the person at intake
determined that the immigrant should "Americanize" their name.
As for the second part of your statement...I agree. I do believe that
the AKA field i the best place to notate that.
Ciao,
Christopher
On 11/23/2019 2:56 PM, mvmcgrs--- via LegacyUserGroup wrote:
First, the name was not changed at Ellis Island. The manifests were made
in the country that they departed from. They probably made the change
themselves to make the name easier to pronounce and spell. They may have
done it legally, [through the courts] but more likely they just started
to use the new spelling.
I'm using Legacy 8 and there is an AKA (4th logo from the right) it
looks like a group of people. You can add the name that they used in
Italy or the one used in the US, your choice. You can cite the source
(census, birth record, marriage record, etc) for each individual time
you find the name. Then use the other name in database.
Marie
Marie Varrelman Melchiori, Certified Genealogist Emeritus
______________________________ ______________________________ __
CG or Certified Genealogist is a service mark of the Board for
Certification of Genealogists, used under license by Board-certified
genealogists after periodic competency evaluation, and the board name is
registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.
In a message dated 11/23/2019 2:53:41 PM Eastern Standard Time,
cathyv...@cox.net writes:
My great grandfather had the surname Vallevegni in Italy.
When the family immigrated to the U.S. it changed to Vallevieni
which
they used from then on (probably changed at Ellis Island).
How should I enter 2 surnames in Legayc?
-- Cathy Vallevieni
714 389-6374 Home
714 227-4948 Cell
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