Hello kat2004,
Ellis Island was the processing station for immigrants at New York port from 1892-1924 If your ancestor sailed into NY anytime in 1924 he will be on the ships passenger lists for that time period.
The only passengers whose name will not be found on Ellis Island are those who sailed first or 2nd class during
specific time periods.
Ffrom about June 15th 1897 until approx. March or April 1903, the lists for first class and
second class passengers were not collected at Ellis Island and do not survive, so therefore will not appear on microfilm, nor in the Ellis Island online database.
Since your ancestor came in 1924, the IF he came in through NY he will be Ellis Island records.
You should use Steve Morse's one-step search engine to search this set of records, at
http://stevemorse.org/There is a quick tutorial on how best to use the search engines at
http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/Click on "Oddities of Searching Ellis Island! What have you found? "
Of course if he didn't sail into NY then he won't be in the Ellis Island database and you will have to search microfilmed indexes for the other ports of arrival in USA. You can get a list of film numbers (NARA & FHC) at
http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/nara_indexbyport.shtmlScroll down to the state you want and click on the link,then find the film # you need, then decide whether to order it in to a nearby FHC or have NARA do a lookup.
The staff of the National Archives will undertake a search of the original records for a fee.
btw there are
more than 100 men named William Miller on the Ellis ISland database arriving 1924. You need to tell us more details - his date of birth and where born if you want more help
Good luck.
