Spotlight: Ellis Island Family History Day

The American story is one built on immigration. Ellis Island plays a prominent role in that story. The late 1800s saw advances in steamship technology which set a new standard for ocean travel and brought with it a wave of immigration to the United States. On January 1, 1892, the federal government opened a new immigration processing center on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty on nearby Liberty Island had just been completed and dedicated in October 1886. From that day on, Ellis Island was the launching point for generations of future Americans. 

On April 17, 1907, the Ellis Island processing station recorded its busiest day. On that day, 11,747 people – just slightly less than today’s population of Chatham, Illinois - passed through the Registry Room, an area no bigger than 2 basketball courts. National Ellis Island Family History Day was born on April 17, 2001, when, in commemoration of its busiest processing day, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation and the National Park Service launched digital access to the Ellis Island arrival records. Observed each year on April 17th, Ellis Island Family History Day is designed to encourage exploration of family history and promote the stories of the many immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. Today, the American Family Immigration History Center database consists of approximately 65 million searchable records for travelers entering the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957, allowing individuals a glimpse into the immigrant experience as well as the opportunity to connect with their family heritage.

By the time the processing center on Ellis Island closed on November 12, 1954, over 12 million immigrants had entered the United States by way of Ellis Island. According to the National Park Service, approximately 40 percent of the U.S. population can trace their ancestry to an individual who entered through Ellis Island. Several famous names can be found among the list of those who passed through. Irving Berlin, one of the greatest songwriters in American history, arrived from Russia as a 5-year-old boy in 1893. He went on to write an estimated 1,500 songs, including “White Christmas” and “God Bless America.” Olympic gold medal swimmer and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller immigrated through Ellis Island as an infant in 1905, along with his mother and father. The Weissmuller family eventually settled in Chicago, where young Johnny took swimming lessons in Lake Michigan off Fullerton Beach. Weissmuller won 3 gold medals during the 1924 Paris Olympics and another 2 during the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. When he retired from swimming, Weissmuller played Tarzan in twelve films from 1932 to 1948. Comedian Bob Hope immigrated with his mother and five of his brothers in 1908 when he was 4 years old. Hope later joked, “Though I was born in England, I left at the age of four. . . . Actually, the minute I started to talk, they deported me.”

To learn more about Ellis Island and explore your family history, please visit www.ellisisland.org/ellis-island.