Steffi

There was an article on Yahoo news regarding Bush's illegal immigrant work authorization stuff and of course I couldn't help but click on it. But what I found even more interesting than the actual article ended up being a link that was posted on the side: http://www.ellisislandrecords.org

This is a "few" years off from anyone that would have immigrated today, but i thought it was an interesting find nontheless as my husband's great-grandparents immigrated through Ellis Island. Patrick's grandma always encourages us to go to NY and find their names engraved on Ellis Island. So I've been searching through the database trying to locate his great-grandparents. I think I found his great-grandmother, so I'm pretty excited...though I'm having trouble finding his great-grandfather.

Anyway...I thought other people may be interested in checking it out. More so the American citizens here that may find that one of their ancestors immigrated through there as well. Now if I could only decipher some more of that handwriting! *L*

Matthew Udall

Nice to see an online version of this. While I was at Ellis Island in the fall of 02, I used this same program on a station they have set up in the museum at Ellis Island, and found my Great Grandfather listed. He came over in 1894.

Steffi

That's great! Where was he from?
I had some trouble finding anything at first because the last name at immigration wasn't the same last name that they now use! I had to call Patrick's grandma to figure out what was going on. So she gave me their last name at immigration, but I need to talk to her again because when I was looking for "Frank" I only got results like "Franciszek" and "Framiszek" so I'm hoping she maybe has some more info what his actual name was.
Oh, and they immigrated from Poland by the way. But from what the document states their "nationality" is "austrian" but their "race" is "polish." Whatever that means? I tried to look into it a bit more and apparently there's the "Austrian Poland" (or something like that), which was actually called "Galizian." Learned something new!

Rete

My grandparents are listed but not from Poland but Russia because both were born in Warsaw which at that time in the 1800's it was Russian territory.

I've not been to Ellis Island in a few years and they had just opened it when I visited and was skeletal. I understand though that it was been added to and that they are thinking of opening the hospital building as well.

Steffi

To add onto that real quick...when I kept reading that these polish/austrians were from "Galicia" I got really confused as to why these people were from Spain! Now that I did more research about it I had to laugh when I came across this info:

"Galicia (E) or Galizien (D) was formerly a crown land of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Its former territories are now shared between southern Poland and western Ukraine. Other names for the area are Galicja (Polish), Halychyna (Ukrainian) and Rus Halicka (Polish).
Note that Galicia should not be confused with the province in northern Spain of the same name."

Haha, this confusion seems to be a common mistake!

Steffi

Damn them for confusing us by moving the map!

sibsie

What a great find Steffi. I'll send that to my mum to see if she can track any of her relatives on there.

ian-mstm

My dad remembers that both his father and his grandfather spoke several languages... Polish, Russian, Latvian and Lithuanian - because the towns where they lived were periodically taken over by each in the mid-late 1800s. It always helps to speak the language of your oppressors!

Ian

Hypertweeky

LOL Steffi, Spanish people from "Galicia" are called "Galicians" with C, in Spanish they are called "Gallegos".
In Mexico they think we (Spaniards) are all gallegos and when they try to imitate our accent they talk loud and and pretend they are from a small cow town lol (no offense involved, you guys know I LOVE cows)
Hey I looked up "Lund" (Mark's lastname) and I found 5 matches, I don't know what name I shall be looking for so I am gonna ask his 93 (soon to be 94) great granny!!
I love the link, Thank you!!

Rete

Actually I've come to learn that many people from around the global and an assortment of age groups speak multiple languages. My mother spoke German, French and English. My father speaks Polish and English. My first husband speaks English and Russian. My present husband speaks English, French, Yiddish, German and understands some Albanian and Russian and is at age 63 learning Spanish. My paternal grandparents spoke Polish, Russian and English. My maternal grandparents, French and German.

Hypertweeky

Mark thinks that is very common for Europeans (especially those in the Eastern Countries) to know more than one language but checking out this website: http://www.languageadvantage.com/sur...ometer2001.htm
made me realize he is wrong lol.
Dang Rete your family is smart, I wish I could speak all those languages!!

Noorah101

Hi Steffi, thanks for that link...it's very interesting. My 88 year old dad did a lot of geneology research and found out that his ancestors who came to the USA from Germany, actually came to Germany from Russia first. My dad remembers when he was a kid, his father spoke fluent German (with older family members), but would only speak English with my dad, so my dad never learned German. My mother's family heritage is French all the way back, but my mom's parents came from France to Canada (Quebec), and then just after they got married, they came to the USA, so all the kids were born in Connecticut. Mom's parents both spoke only French to each other...but again, like my dad's dad, spoke only English with the children, so mom understood French but couldn't speak it very well. Of course, when it got to be my generation, it was all English, and I had to go about learning my foreign language skills the hard way. LOL

Rene

Aliluv

My Husband who is Polish but born in Germany speaks German, Polish and English fluently and he also can speak some Yugoslavian and Knows a few Turkish words. He is 25.

I can speak English and Spanish (was in a Spanish immersion program at school) and I can say a few things in German.

I think it is cool for people to learn other languages.

ian-mstm

The only Spanish I know, I learned while I worked at a federal prison for 2.5 years! About 70% of the inmate population was Hispanic. I learned a few things, boy oh boy!

Ian

Steffi

So speaking of languages...to those that aren't in all english relationships and are planning on having kids: are you planning on teaching your kids all the languages? Since I'm German and want to have kids one day I'm planning on teaching them german. I'm just afraid to keep it up though! I very rarely speak german anymore, so I'm a little worried that even though I say now that I will teach my kids german that I won't actually carry through.

I'm glad everyone likes the link. I got pretty excited about the find.