New free database of US Immigrants Launched

[Paul E]

"CastleGarden.org offers free access to an extraordinary database of information on 10 million immigrants from 1830 through 1892, the year Ellis Island opened."

http://www.castlegarden.org/

cheers


Paul

[GeoffP]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for that site. It is very interesting and much faster than Ellis Island.
                    Regards
                                 Geoff

[jericho]

Hi  Paul,

Great Site, given time I maybe able to find family who went to the U.S. and its free another bonus.
regards
Mary-Ann

[DianaM]

Hi Paul
This looks really useful.  Do you know how complete it is?  I couldn't find any reference to the coverage.
Diana

[Paul E]

Hi Diana

Not at all sure - but this site has some more information and links:

http://genealogue.blogspot.com/2005/07/10-million-immigration-records-online.html

cheers

Paul

PS

That Genealogue is a site worth bookmarking - very witty guy!

[Paul E]

Well, Diana, having read my own link  I discover it is 10 million records of the estimated 12 million people who embarked there, so that's (er...) 83%!

cheers

Paul

[Chattykathy]

Diana, Like every other source ...nothing is complete or perfect.   Did my own test  ---

4 names which I have all details and know which ship/year, etc.    Only 1 showed up.  For the other 3, those paticular ships not in their list (so I guess not entered into the database yet).

6 names which I have not found anywhere --  didn't find them here either! 

Have seen on Rootschat,  a couple of posting for look ups -- which were successful. 

So from my own experience, 50/50  but from PaulE's stats --  should be better than that!

Would think these are not all new transcriptions  ---  so same errors in spelling and info may be transferred into this database as well (however, hopefully they will cull and correct).
 
However, it is easier/faster than Ellis or Ancestry sites so at least you save time to NOT  find what you are looking for.  LOL 

Also, when I did a surname search for paticular years only i.e. to see all "King" immigrants in a 2 year period, they wanted $45 to get the list!

kathy

[nutkin]

You must remember that many records were lost or not very well recorded.  Also, there are so many ports that immigrants could have passed through in the US.   New York was one of many!!  This site is a great free start to getting the early records out in the free market.  Purchasing the advanced search is money to a good casue as Castle Garden is a National Park site and the funds are used to perserve out history.

The biggest problem with the site is the lack of a soundex  for hard to spell surnames. You have to manually try all kinds of combinations and let me tell you I have some really hard names in my tree- Rackebrandt, Torborg, Borgwardt, Grabber, Fleck.  All with many variations of spelling.

[Paul E]

Rackebrandt, Torborg, Borgwardt, Grabber, Fleck

Nutkin

Isn't that the genealogical equivalent of 'Pew, Pew, Barney MacGroo, Cuthbert, Dibble, Snout'?

cheers


Paul