Ellis Island Passenger Records
Ellis Island passenger records or passenger manifest records were kept on the more then 22 million people who came to the United States from 1892 to 1954 through Ellis Island. It processed the greatest amount of immigrants that came from around the world. While there were many other entries into the country, such as Boston, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, Philidelphia, Miami and San Francisco (Angel Island) it is estimated that more than 100 million Americans are directly related to immigrants who came through Ellis Island.
Before Ellis Island, immigrants passed through Castle Garden, NY from 1855 to 1890. In April of 1890 Castle Garden closed it's doors and passengers were processed through an old barge office in Manhattan until Ellis Islands opened in 1892. And prior to Castle Garden, it was the responsibility of the state.
On June 14,1897 a very unfortunate event happened. A fire broke out on Ellis Island and burned the immigration station to the ground. No lives were lost but many years of Federal and State immigration records dating back to 1855 were also destroyed with the building.
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Three years later in 1900 Ellis Island would reopen and remained open until it was shut down by Immigration Services and activities were transfered back to Manhattan. In 1986 the main building was restored making it the largest historic restoration in the country's history. Then in 1990 the Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened it's doors to the public.
In 2001 The American Family Immigration History Center made 22 million immigration records from 1892-1924 available to the public. These records are the EIDB (Ellis Island Database) aand can be viewed for free www.ellisislandrecords.org.
Key information on the Ellis Island passenger records may include some or all of such information as the name of the ship, port of origin, their name, age at time of arrival, marital status, gender and last residence. These records can be as important and helpful as the United States federal census records in finding your ancestors that emigrated to the United States.
Before viewing the Ellis Island passenger records it is very important for you know some key information on your ancestors already. To correctly identify your ancestors on the Ellis Island passenger records you really must first know their full given name and surname.
To make things easier on yourself, do a little research and understand surnames and how some changed.
RootsWeb Surname List 
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