Lots has been written on internet searches
We all have our favorite 'tricks'
Manifests:
My opinion? Dr Steve Morse has the best manifest site:
For Ellis Island: http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB ... close&LNM=
His 'other pages' have also been a tremendous help.
For Castle Garden (includes Ellis Island up to abt 1912): http://www.stevemorse.org/ellis/cg.html
After doing an exact search (including town) on Ellis Island w/o success,
try dropping information
- shorten names
- eliminate first or last name
- shorten or eliminate town
- use the 'contains' search for first names (works great w/double first names)
If the Ellis Island portion of Dr Morse's site doesn't work, try his other
pages for Castle Garden.
- this page allows the use of a 'contains' search for last names
If you can find the correct manifest on the Castle Garden, the original
may be on the Ellis Island portion of the site, only mis-transcribed.
Take what you now know from Castle Garden, name, date, ship, age, town
and try plugging this info into Ellis Island (eliminating/shortening info as needed)
When all else fails - drop all info on the last name.
Hope this makes sense.
Who's next, ready to share secrets??
vj
