I am going to be undertaking a research project on my own, but I am having difficulty in finding information that I need. I basically want to research the following:

1. the conditions Italian immigrants had to go through when coming from Italy to NY. What was it like to live on those ships for 2-3 weeks?

2. Once at Ellis Island, what happened to them? What about children traveling alone? What if they had no one here in the states?

3. How were they able to get on a ship to the US? Were there tickets that were sold? Was it free?

4. After watching GFI and GFII, it occurred to me that that little boy traveling by himself to the U.S. was probably more common than we think. How common was it and why?

5. Were passengers ever sent back? If so, why?


You see, every time I try to do a search, what I wind up with is thousands of website for finding your ancestors. I don't want that, although I would like to find more information on my grandfather and great-grandfather. But, I have little information to go on. GThey were very poor. So, I imagine if they came by ship, they were probably bunking in with the livestock!

So, if anyone here can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it!

~~ Lollie

Hi Lollie,

I'm sure you've already checked out EllisIsland.org. However, if you look at the top of their homepage and click Ellis Island, you can pulldown to history/immigrant experience and a couple others. It does give some information on the conditions/classes of passengers, and if I'm not mistaken several stories by people who's ancestors came to America. I tried to copy/past the link for you, but it wouldn' work for some reason.

A few years ago I got my father's and both set of grandparents ship manifest, as they all came to America via Ellis Island. I was fortunate though to have enough information to follow-thru with it. Good luck. I know it'll be interesting, enlightening and fun doing this kind of research. I will look around too and see if I can find any other sites that may be of help to you.

TIS