Castle Garden Chaos, or How I Went Looking for...

[CBHagman]

Great-Great-Grandpa and Almost Lost My Mind!

When a friend of mine heard that my great-great-grandfather Henry Duggan had landed in New York in the 19th century, she cheerfully suggested I could find him at www.ellisisland.org. If only it were that simple! Ellis Island didn't open until 1892, and Great-Great-Grandpa showed up in January 1864 (too late for the draft riots, just in time for the last year of the Civil War). My mother's side of the family, to my genealogical joy, arrived in the 20th century and was duly transcribed, name by name and hometown by hometown, in the Ellis Island database.

Those of you with similar situations know what I'm getting at: records for those who arrived at Castle Garden in New York City during the 19th century. I have spent some eye-straining sessions at the National Archives trying to read badly faded microfilm of New York arrivals from the right month and year, but didn't come to any conclusions.

So I was thrilled when Family Tree magazine's August issue featured instructions on how to search the Ancestry.com database of New York arrivals, including those at Castle Garden. I knew the National Archives had a subscription to AncestryPlus, so I slipped in this afternoon to perform what I thought would be a quick and conclusive search on my relative.

Forty-five minutes and two exasperated NARA staffers later, I was no closer to finding Henry's record than before. :argh: It turns out that AncestryPlus doesn't include the right searchable database. :banghead:

So I'm due for another session with that maddening microfilm. :crazy: Either that or I'm going to have to shell out cash for an Ancestry subscription of the right type. :mad: Perhaps the Genealogical Records Liberation Front is transcribing records as we speak and planning to put them online for free. One can hope.

Care to share your experiences in locating ancestors' port arrival records? I'm particularly keen to hear the Castle Garden stories, but feel free to cover all the other ports, too, and even the free searchable databases.

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. There are no words to describe...

how much I hate Ancestry and their freaking extortion. They've taken over all the decent free sites, and made them absolutely worthless to me.

I have managed to do most of my searching (except for that of a cousin who looked up a few 1930 entries for me on her own subscription) without them, and will continue to do so.

What they call business really pisses me off. They've turned an enjoyable hobby into the equivalent of a mortgage or something. It's all about the bottom dollar. Nothing more.

FSC

FWIW, I did find my Rennscheidts, Maria and Herman at Ellis Island, which was exciting. Went halfsies with my mom and got them both put on the wall.

[CBHagman]

2. Love that Ellis Island stuff.

Congratulations on putting everyone on the wall.

I certainly enjoyed seeing the photos of the ships that brought my relatives to this country, plus it's cool having the digitized images of the ship manifests on the site now.

I wish someone would do the same for Castle Garden. :cry:

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. Yeah, the manifests

are my favorite part!

It's one thing to have them transcribed on the ISTG site, but I like actually reading the real thing.

Plus, as a heritage scrapbooker, I enjoy having the original images to work with if I want.

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[CBHagman]

4. Rule number one: Watch for transcription errors.

One thing I've noticed is that any site or record that required a volunteer or staffer to read old handwriting, documents, etc., runs the risk of transcription errors. Beware! My Aunt Julie's name was misspelled on the Ellis Island database, not because the manifest was wrong but because when it came time to put the database together, the transcriber didn't understand the handwriting. I've since corrected it.

The same goes for things on www.familysearch.org. I appreciate immensely all the effort that went into putting FREE records on the Web, especially the 1880 Census, but there are goofs in there.
"Allow for human error in everything," I guess, is the cardinal rule of genealogy.

[fudge stripe cookays]

5. You got that right.

Especially those pesky census takers!

The other night I finally found one of the offshoots of my Smith family around Beloit and environs. The guy's name was Walter Alick Myers (variously seen as Meyers as well).

But I could NOT find this guy in Godfrey. I finally did about the most open ended search I could, and found him.

His parents were both German, so the guy must have gained an accent, and the census taker just took down what he heard. He was listed as "Ellick."

:spray:

[CBHagman]

6. A follow-up and hopefully a bit of assistance

Today I did some more Google searching for Castle Garden searches and tips. There's still no free online searchable database that I know of, but I played around with Ancestry.com's search engine and found that you can at least unearth some transcriptions of records. The bad news is that they are not complete (you will still have to pay for a full record of name, estimated year of birth, port of arrival, etc.), but there's enough info to provide clues and also some sense of how your ancestor's name was recorded.

See site below:

http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=List&dbid=7488&ti=0

For example, I was able to get a sense of the number of Henry Dugans/Henry Duggans (and variations) who are listed on their index. I then tried the search engine with various relatives and got some interesting transcriptions. For example, it's possible that my McCloskey relatives are listed as McCloskey, McClusky and even McCluskr (sic). Food for thought and ideas for further searches.

Maybe the LDS volunteers will someday transcribe the Castle Garden index. If they did the 1880 Census, they must have stamina! :-)

[CBHagman]

7. Eureka! There's an online searchable database!

Good news, DUers! I was looking at the www.genealogytoday.com website and saw a link to Castle Garden.

http://www.castlegarden.org/about.html

But the best news of all is that there is a searchable database with names, dates of arrival, names of ships, port of origin, national origin, etc. It's time for the Dance of Joy! :woohoo: :bounce:

http://www.castlegarden.org/search.php

And I think I've found me great-great-grandpa!

[CBHagman]

8. More free searchable databases.

At this rate, I may never have to leave the house again. It turns out the National Archives has more searchable online databases in their genealogical collection. There are limitations, but do check them out and see whether what you're seeking is there:

Basic databases:

http://aad.archives.gov/aad/

Genealogical, including immigrants arriving in New York during the potato famine:

http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=GP21,22,23,24