Are Ellis Island Manifests Complete?

[jjulian14712]

Is it possible that there were passengers on those ships that were not listed in the manifests? If so, is there any way to access that information?

Thanks!

[Poipuo4]

Well, I don't know the answer to that but it is possible that the transcribers at ancestry.com and ellisisland.org so mangled your relative's last name when indexing the lists that you can not find them. You can use www.stevemorse.org to search by town. I have done this because one of my towns is pretty small. I scanned the list for any crazy looking names. When I found one, I clicked on the actual manifest and lo and behold, found my relative.

[Poipuo4]

woops! double post....sorry!

[misbris]

Are you sure your ancestor came through Ellis Island and not another port? I searched and searched for my grandmother. Finally members on this site found her Boston manifest. I was really surprised because there was never any indication from my New Jersey family that my grandfather travelled from Newark to Boston to get her.

[Romano1970]

MISBRIS has a point. I too thought my grandfather came through Ellis and he came through Boston.

Check out the site that was sent to you. I have been on it and there is a ton of info there for you to research.

Also I would try spelling the name in as many different ways as you can.

Another approach would be to put his last name first. I found BIFF found about 3 more documents on my grandfather doing it that way too.

Good Luck

[ALP70]

I couldn't find my relative on the Ellis Island site, and I did various searches of names, towns etc. I ended up finding said relative on two other sites though that I recommend looking at in addition to Ellis Island:

www.castlegarden.org

And NARA DC's compilation of Italian immigrants' passenger records:
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-desc ... jsp?s=4433

Ellis Island's website is not the be-all-end-all of passenger records, although it is very useful and has scanned images.

[nuccia]

Ellis Island manifests are as complete as they can be up until 1924 but they do not have manifests after that time. Nor do they have manifest copies I believe prior to 1898 or so (Castle Gardens has those transcribed and many can be viewed on ancestry.com).


Keep in mind as well that about 10 per cent of manifest were lost or destroyed about 1902 so there is a possibility manifest will not be available.

Also, when looking through Ellis Island manifests, you may want to use the www.stevemorse.org search engine instead. Steve has created a much more user friendly search tool than the original www.ellisisland.org site.

I'm glad you were at least able to find your manifests. If you like, and you have not already been able to see the scanned images of the manifest, post the info here and we can try looking them up for you on ancestry. If they are online, we may be able to link you a copy.

[Essgee]

Ellis Island was open from 1892 to 1924. Castle Garden covers New York arrivals from 1821 to 1913. Again, both of these are New York arrivals. There is a Castle Garden site...but search not available on soundex.

There are other ports available through Ancestry, through the LDS and through the NARA.

Now, in all the posts concerning this, you haven't indicated if you have found him in the census at all. Do you have a location of where he was in 1910/1920/1930 specifically. There are two Franks...born in May 1895 in the WWI records...does either make sense to you?

Need something definative and then we move backwards from there.

[Biff83]

1930 census for Frank J Julian and wife Flora

Name: Frank J Julian
Home in 1930: Dunkirk, Chautauqua, New York
Age: 34
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1896
Birthplace: New York
Father & Mother's Birthplace: France
Relation to Head of House: Head
Spouse's Name: Flora
Occupation: Machinist, Shovel Plant
Veteran: No answer shown
Year of marriage: About 1922

Based on information previously posted, this appears to be the correct person. Since he stated place of birth as New York, there is no immigration/naturalization info.

Biff

[jjulian14712]

Thanks to all of you for your responses.

Since I haven't been able to find a close match with my grandfather, I'm starting to wonder if the manifest is unrecorded. He claims to have entered the US on the Verona on April 1, 1909. The closest voyage for the Verona I can find is April 2nd, and noone close to matching him is on it.

The Frank Julian or Gulian from WWI records stands a good chance of being the correct one. His draft card shows his last name spelled with a "G" and describing himself as "an alien," born in Rome, Italy in 1893. Later records show his birthdate as both 1894 and 1895.

In 1910, to the best of my knowledge, he was in Fredonia, Town of Pomfret, NY, working as a farmhand on the Osbourne farm on Van Buren Road.

In 1920, he should have been back from the war and on his own farm in Sheridan, NY.

Someone was kind enough to post the 1930 census, where my grandfather claims to have been born in New York, with parents born in France. By 1930, he was spelling his last name with a "J." You can see how we've had a problem with inconsistent information.

Any census information you could provide (or an idea of where I can go from here) would be very helpful and gratefully appreciated.

[BillieDeKid]

Possible 1909 manifest..........line 23 ....... SS Verona ......May 1 not Apr. 1

page 1
http://www.ellisisland.org/EIFile/popup ... &line=0023
page 2
http://www.ellisisland.org/EIFile/popup ... &line=0023

Can you look this over and see if it's a possibility.

[Essgee]

Look at this and see if it applys:

1910 censu:

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/7531 ... susbj8.jpg

[nuccia]

Ellis Island was open from 1892 to 1924. Castle Garden covers New York arrivals from 1821 to 1913. Again, both of these are New York arrivals. There is a Castle Garden site...but search not available on soundex.

There are other ports available through Ancestry, through the LDS and through the NARA.

Thank you Susan for clearing this up. Your knowledge never ceases to impress me!

[vj]

No luck on your manifest, but came across this obituary that you may not have.
Valarie

Dunkirk Evening Observer (Dunkirk, New York)
24 May 1932
obit Mrs Frank Julian

Dunkirk Evening Observer (Dunkirk, New York)
28 May 1932
funeral notice Mrs Frank J Julian

[jjulian14712]

To all of you who responded so far:

Biff--That's definitely my grandfather in the 1930 census. Since he gives deliberately incorrect informaton about his past, you can see why we have a problem solving this mystery!

Elizabeth--The Francesco Giuliano on that manifest is a definite possibility, especially since it's only a month off from what he reported, but his destination informaton doesn't match up with anything we know about him, so it's hard to verify if that's really him. Does it mean anything that his name is crossed off?

Essgee--You have the correct town in the census, but I wasn't able to find the Osbourne farm on Van Buren Road on the page you posted. I would really like to find my grandfather on that census, because our family has the sense that the information reported by him earlier in his life was more likely to be true.

Valarie--That's my grandfather's first wife who passed away, and our family's never seen that article until now. Thanks!

To all of you--Thank you very much for your willingness to help us. Any information you can come up with will be very much appreciated by our family. We keep running into dead ends, and we don't know how to proceed if we can't definitively link him to Italy through one of the manifests.