Congratulations! Lady Liberty

Happy 4th of July–to you and to Lady Liberty.  The Statue of Liberty has a newly renovated and opened Crown.  And tours of the Statue for all of July and August are reserved and sold out!

At the time the Statue was finally in place in New York Harbor, the City of New York and its greater urban area were different from other American cities–

Largest Jewish city in the world.

2nd largest Russian city in the world.

4th largest Italian city in the world.

And by 1900, New York City had more Irish than all of Ireland. 

Immigration and naturalization records include separate indexes for British Isles background, German background (includes Jewish immigrants), Italian background.  This is a real blessing to researchers, since the surnames can be the same.

In our online age, with more and more passenger lists and naturalization records available online with indexes generated by the digital database, I still recommend that you search the original indexes on microfilm at your nearest genealogy library.  You cannot anticipate how paid indexers have interpreted the handwriting as well as the spelling of your ancestors names.

Basing your link across the ocean on the online version only can be risky–precisely because the names can be the same regardless of the origins of the ancestor.  Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  Send me your email request, and I’ll send you a copy of my NEW Checklist for Tracing Ancestors in Cities.

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