I found my grandfather's immigration on Ancestry last night!

[Breeze54]

How cool is that!!! And I found my grandmother!! She came here in 1900!

They are giving everyone a FREE 3 day pass to search their records this weekend.

http://www.ancestry.com

And ALL military records are free to search until June 6th!!

Ancestry.com Puts 90M War Records Online
Reporter Donna Borak explores Ancestry.com’s new U.S. Military Collection.
http://www.ancestry.com/s30787/t10529/rd.ashx

I was thrilled, as it's been difficult to track/trace my grandfather.

I was able to save a copy of the record. Pretty damn cool! :)

[u4ic]

1. Cool! I'll check it out

Thanks for the info! :hi:

[SeattleGirl]

2. I found my father's father's military registration form on that site.

It was pretty cool!

[Breeze54]

4. You mean your grandfather?? lol Awesome!!

I wasn't able to find my uncle who served in the Navy in WWII.
I don't think they have the Navy records there. Lots of Army and Marine's though.

But I found pages and pages of my family name, serving since the revolution, up until now!

I never knew there were so many with the same name as my father and his and his etc.!

Now I'm trying to figure out what ship my grandmother arrived on and at what port.

I found my grandfather's passage fee was $5.00!! He was 24 years old and all alone.

And then I found the 1930 census and he was listed as a policeman in Boston 10 yrs later!

What a trip!! I'm loving it! Wish I could find out more but I'm still trying! ;)

[SeattleGirl]

7. How cool!

And yeah, I mean my grandfather; just trying to clarify it was my paternal grandfather (guess I could have put it THAT way, huh???).

[Gormy Cuss]

24. That $5.00 fee... are you getting that from column 16?

That's the one right after the question about who paid for passage (col. 15) but it
asks how much money the immigrant is carrying, and if the immigrant has less than the ideal amount (in 1920 it was probably $50) the immigrant had to state how much. The reason for this question was to help judge whether the potential immigrant was likely to become a public charge. Little cash and no relative/friend to meet them at Ellis Island was one set of circumstances that customs agents would use to deny entrance to the U.S. I recently dealt with a 1912 record of a woman who only had $7 and she was held in detention until her relative came to sign for her two days after the ship landed. I know that because there's a second document for her detention mixed in with the other immigration records available at Ancestry.com

If you can't find your grandmother during the free trial, PM me and I can try to help. I've used both NYC and Boston ship manifests quite a bit. And yes, it's always a thrill to find a relative in these records.

[AlCzervik]

3. thanks! I just found my Grampa's enlistment form, it says he weighed 117 pounds

my god, i wonder if that can be right. they got his profession before enlistment correct so i guess Grampa was just really skinny.

Edited to add--i just found both his brothers as well, they were all in the air corps during the same period, from 1938 to 1946.

[Breeze54]

5. How cool!!!

I hope you saved a copy!

Sounds like a really young guy, at the time.

I noticed a lot of Draft Regs. were from people in there 50's and 60's during WWII! Yikes!!

Birth dates like 1897 and 1887!! That would never happen today...

[AlCzervik]

6. omg i cannot thank you enough! you will not believe this, just for kicks i put in

my great grandfathers name, there has always been a mystery or something lost in translation about what city in Russia he came from and his enlistment card from 1942 is there, the original copy! I now know for sure our people came from Kovno. My god it has his signature, i swear i'm going to cry.

[Breeze54]

8. That's how I felt last night.

:hug:

It's just an awesome feeling, isn't it?

I just wish I could have known all this before my father died.

Every time I asked him where my grandfather was born, he'd say,

"We don't know and he refused tell us. We just don't know."

But I think I may have found that key now, maybe. ;)

[AlCzervik]

9. oh, i'm sorry. After researching Kovno a bit i can see maybe why he didn't talk

about it much, it was a jewish Ghetto and it looks like he was really lucky to get out when he did. I just emailed my dad that what i found and i also found a census report from 1920, what a mind blower. The really funny thing is that all my gram pa and his brothers were all plumbers in civilian life but in WW2 they were all in aviation, flying or navigating, plumbers and pilots, sheesh what a combination.

[Breeze54]

10. I suspect my grandfather was

or did come from a really shitty background too. I know it.
I know that he was a very harsh man and not kind to his sons.
He came from an extremely hard upbringing and it showed,
according to my father's stories. Life just sucked. :(
One of the old time very 'tough' guys... if you get my drift.

[ikojo]

13. My grandpa refused to talk about the "old country"

as they called it. He said that they'd get letters and they were full of sadness. I don't recall him talking about his childhood or parents at all. I know it was a strict upbringing, though.

Europe LOATHED Jews for a thousand years before Adolf Hitler.

[datasuspect]

11. i found my mother's name on a passenger manifest

she sailed here from liverpool on the "SS Britannica" in 1948.

in the "race or people" column, they say she is german.

[jmm]

12. Thank! I have a new favorite family name- Icey.

I found a ton of stuff on my grandfather including his military enlistment info, details on his first marriage that nobody ever talks about, and the fact that his mom's race seems to change from census to census. Of course some of those censuses spell his name wrong so I wouldn't put it past them to messed up my my great-grandma's info too.

[AggieGal]

14. Sounds Good

I will try this out later today. It would be cool to find out what ship my great-grandma traveled on from Germany. She was just 2 yrs old on arrival and never spoke English.

[lizziegrace]

15. Very addictive

I found my name and my father's misspelled 50% of the time. Address and age correct, name wrong.

:)

[LostinVA]

16. Have you went to the Ellis Island site?

They have PDFs of the manifests, etc. Very cool.

[Blue Diadem]

17. That's where we found immigration records for 3 of DH's grandparents.

You can even see a picture of the ship they boarded.

[LostinVA]

19. Same here -- REALLY neat!

[bikebloke]

18. Records lost in fire

I tried getting my grandfather's and father's records. But there was a big fire at the St. Louis storage facility and they were lost. I'm more interested in my grandfather. Anyone know where you can find info about units during the Great War? I have that info off his tombstone.

[CBHagman]

21. You could try these.

Try the National Archives. You can also see if there's a Family History Center (Run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). They have access to various records and can also order items.

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/

http://www.familysearch.org

You might also try newspaper archives, city directories, and other things that are available either through local and county historical or genealogical societies, or libraries.

Veterans' cemeteries:

http://www.cem.va.gov/

I got some of my grandfather's World War I data through newspaper clippings, and I think his actual draft card was online, accessible through the computers at the National Archives (It may have been an Ancestry listing, though).

Good luck!

[bikebloke]

25. Thanks!

Cheers

[applegrove]

20. Genealogy can be like a mystery at times. Lots of hard work in between.

[Nikia]

22. I found my grandfather's enlistment

The birth year and residence matches along with him having no dependents at the time and two years of college. I thought that he was a little taller though than the 59 inches that it lists. It also lists his occupation as an actor. He never mentioned acting to us. He mentioned coal mining and waiting tables as jobs he had before the war.

[Reverend_Smitty]

23. Thanks for the tip!

I had no idea that there were so many people in my hometown who shared my last name in the 1920s and 1930s. I'm thinking that many have to be related to me in some way because they are living in the same area and their places of origin are all listed as "Austria, Hungary or Czechoslovakia" when considering the mess that was eastern Europe after WWI they could have all been from the same village but called it 3 different countries.

Another interesting tidbit...I found my great-grandfather's draft registration card from 1942 (he was 61 years old at the time...wow!) but can't find a single thing on my grandfather who I know served in the military. It's quite strange...but all in all not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon

[bikebloke]

26. Draft docs

I found my grandfather's draft registration. It was signed 5 June 1917. Almost 90 years to the day. None of the relatives who were in the military during the 50's could be found. I guess those are the records lost in the St. Louis fire.

Once I fill in the tree, I'll try the three free days to snag any additional info.