Were immigrants' names really changed at Ellis Island?
No. The story is a myth, and the National Park Service and the National Archives both say so plainly. Inspectors at Ellis Island never wrote names down. They checked each passenger against the ship's manifest, a list written by the shipping company's clerks in Europe, at the port of departure, when the ticket was bought. Clerks and interpreters between them covered the passengers' languages, and no documented case of an inspector changing a name has ever been found. Odd spellings on a manifest usually come from the departure port: a clerk writing a name as it sounded in his own language. Where a family's name did change, it changed later, in America, by the family's own choice, often formalised when they naturalised.
Useful pages: Irish in USA · The Irish surnames map · Trace your Irish roots · Coming home · Irish around the world
Sources
- National Park Service: Ellis Island, Castle Garden and tracing immigrant ancestors, nps.gov
- National Archives and Records Administration (US): passenger lists, census clues and naturalization guidance, archives.gov
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