Once at the Ellis Island homepage the first thing that you may think to do is to use the Ellis Island Passenger Search by typing in a family member's name and/or birth year. However take a minute to look around the home page before typing away. If you click the pictures at the top left at any point you will be returned to this homepage. To the right of this you will be given three options Home (which also returns you to this homepage), Sign In (will bring you to page where you can either sign in or create a free account), and Sign Our Guestbook (where you can sign enter your name and e-mail address in order to receive tips for using the site. I've never done this, let me know if it is worth it).
Down a bit, but still atop the page, are six options: Passenger Search, Ellis Island, Genealogy, About Us, Gift Shop, & Donate
Through Passenger Search you'll be given the options of starting a new search, using one of your previously saved searches (if you have an account), using an advanced search method, search by ship (which is also an option on the homepage accessed by clicking one of the letters in the Search By Ship box), view your Ellis Island saved files, and view search tips or advanced search tips.
Through Ellis Island you can learn more about Ellis Island via a expression of the immigrant experiences, brief history, a time line, photo albums, information about the Experiences, some family histories, information on people of America by time frame, and information of visiting Ellis Island.
Through Genealogy you can get some tips for researching your genealogy. Some good tips, if you feel like reading through.
About Us is just like it sounds it will give you information about the Ellis Island Foundation. Its somewhat interesting, but won't necessarily help with your tree.
Gift Shop is something that if you can't figure it out for yourself than I can't help you.
Donate is also self explanatory.
Now you can go back and try to search. I'll walk you through this using my ggm "Tomasina Capobianco". There are a lot (and I mean a lot) of Capobianco's, which makes this a long search.
Type as much information as you have for someone on your tree: First Name, Last Name, Birth Year, and Gender. Sometimes it will give you results, other times you'll be asked to lessen you search criteria.
As luck would have it, my search didn't go so well. I had to sift through the entire alphabetical list of 942 Capobianco's 25 at a time only to find that she was not listed. NOW WHAT?
In this circumstance you might feel a little disparaged, but look out of the 942 Capobianco's there are only 7 with the first initial T. 3 of those 7 are names that are variations of Thomas, like Tomasina. Now I believe that my ggm was born in 1899. I base this information off of her daughter, my gm's memory, and the SSDI (two sources). I clicked on the first of those 3. Tommaso Capobianco is listed to be a 13 year old male who arrived in 1903. Wrong gender and age. Second of 3: Tommaso Capobianco - 33 year old male who arrived in 1910. This isn't looking too good. Third try: Tommasso Capobianco - 22 year old female (right gender, finally) who arrived in 1921 (years check out as well).
I, because I have done this search before, could have skipped the annoying search through 942 Capobianco's. I new the name of the ship that she had sailed on to be Duca D'Aosta and arrived on May 18, 1921. So I clicked the letter D on the Search by Ship. Then I clicked Dm-Dz. I found the Duca d'Aosta, clicked it and searched for and found the only Capobianco aboard that ship.
Once you find the individual that you are looking for you can look at:
1) the passenger record, which lists information as follows:
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2) the ship manifest (I'll come back to this).
3) Ship gives you information on the ship as well as a photo of it.
4) View an or 5) Create an Annotation to the record. I am going to create one. Clicking on Create and Annotation brings up a screen with all of the information that they have and allows you to annotate the info that you want to. I annotated her name with "Also Known As: Tommasina or Tomasina." I've also inserted her birth and death dates and names of her husbands.
Back to 2) Ship Manifest.
I recommend reading the paragraph that starts with Important! Please Read!
If you don't read it I will summarize. Manifest can be two or more pages long, so don't just use the page they present you with.
If you click on the manifest it will open in another window. Read through it. Take note of any other family member names listed. My ggm mentioned that she would be joining her fiancé, listed his name and address. On the previous page (remember to check for multiple pages) she
lists a relative in her birth county. In this case her father Michale. This gives me another branch up from Tommasina Capobianco to Michele Capobianco.
Now explore. Find all you can. If you find a name on a manifest of someone that your ancestor came to America to join, try typing that name in to the search box on the Ellis Island home page.
Good Luck
