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HomePersonal SituationUsing Ellis Island Records to Find Relatives for Free

Using Ellis Island Records to Find Relatives for Free

I don’t know much about my dad’s family history, so any insight always excites me.  My dad has a limited knowledge but it isn’t his fault.  My Papou (Grandfather in Greek) was the youngest of eight and was 60 when my dad was born!  So if you do the math it is possible that all of my dad’s first cousins were already deceased before he was even born!  Now we are going to add in the fact that until a couple days ago we thought my Papou was the only one of this siblings that came to America through Ellis Island as a passenger.

Recently, I have been really into the History Channel’s, “America The History of Us” and in the newest episode they discussed the building of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so I thought, for the first time, I wonder what is on the Ellis Island Website.

How do you Look Up Ellis Island Information?

I was shocked how simple and easy the Ellis Island Website was! As soon you get there it asks, “Who are you looking for?” and all you have to do is answer a few questions:

Ellis Island Search

I figured that once I entered the information I would be able to get additional information about my Grandfather, but imagine my surprise that Ellis Island had two other family members who came around the same time!

Ellis Island Search Results

I quickly called my dad and asked if he had any clue who or what a Euskatios was! Considering he has been working under the impression that we were the only people who came through Ellis Island with our last name, he had no clue.  The hunt continues!

I did have extremely good luck just putting my last name into face book and finding a bunch of relatives from over in Greece, but considering I don’t speak Greek there is a language barrier.

Go look up your family and let me know what you find!

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Intriguing post. I had to stop reading and try the Ellis Island web site immediately (no…I don’t have too much time on my hands). I didn’t get any hits on “Plemon” but that doesn’t mean I can’t further pursue my ancestry (when I have more time). Thanks for sharing this info.

    • I had really good luck just googleing and facebooking my last name. It is a very unusual Greek-ish last name so it wasn’t that hard to find some people.

      What Country are the relatives from?

  2. Sounds cool 🙂

    I think I have a pretty good idea of who came over via Ellis island in my family, but there might be surprises…

      • I didn’t, but I’m going to have my father-in-law have a crack at it. At one time he did geneology research for his family. I know he hit the mormon’s site, but I don’t think he tried the “Ellis Island Website”.

        Since I’m the computer guy, I’ll help him put in the info (it’s funny how us computer guys get all questions about computers… even for sites we have no idea about) 🙂

  3. that series on the history channel is amazing. i love it.

    history and ancestry is one of those things that is really hard to track down i have given it shot at least 3 or 4 different times and never really came up with anything.

    when i ask my parents they always give me some token answer that doesn’t really go anywhere.

  4. I know many years ago at Ellis Island my dad found some relatives he had heard of in the book. I grew up in England but of Irish descent and had distant family who went to the States…. Interesting stuff.

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