Ancestry Magazine

Read an article or attend a lecture on “the immigrant experience” and you’re almost certain to hear about immigrants who were detained or who went through a board of special inquiry upon arrival in the United States. While occasionally you’ll be privy to the passenger sheets generated in these instances, more often than not you’ll receive very little additional information, even about the immigrants who came to America through Ellis Island. Consider for a moment that of the 17 million immigrants who came to the immigrant station at Ellis Island, only 12 million of them ever made it through and were able to “touch” American soil. That means another 5 million didn’t pass physical or mental acuity tests, didn’t give the right answers to their boards of special inquiry, or simply were considered not acceptable by the standards of the day.Statistics, while impressive, do not give insight into the real experiences of immigrants as they disembarked the ferry on Ellis Island and began the long walk. More importantly, they also fail to offer details of that time during which those 5 million immigrants were detained. Fortunately for you, the family historian, records exist that document these experiences, and these same records may also reveal information that could be helpful in your genealogical research as well.

The Examinations
Examinations began the minute the steerage class immigrants entered the immigrant processing station on Ellis Island. But there were no x-ray machines or blood tests; instead, the first part of the physical exam was given to the immigrants as they walked up stairs from the baggage area to the Great Hall while doctors watched.Based on their observations, doctors would put chalk marks on immigrants whom they felt needed a more detailed examination. Certain marks almost guaranteed an immigrant would not leave Ellis Island—“CT” for Trachoma, “SC” for Scalp, and an “X” with a circle designated those immigrants who had definite signs of mental disease.It is impossible to go back in time to see what chalk marks may have been put on an ancestor; passenger lists, however, do hold some clues. If someone was detained for any reason, a notation was usually made on the passenger list itself. After about 1903, ships’ manifests had attached to them lists of which passengers were held for special inquiry as well as a list of those passengers who were detained.Passenger lists contain a good deal of basic information about an immigrant, but they may also hold a number of additional notations about a passenger that were made later. Some of these notations pertain to the immigrant’s naturalization process; other notations may indicate if a passenger was detained for some reason. If, for example, the initials “S.I.” appear to the left of a passenger’s name, this indicates that the passenger was brought before a board of special inquiry. If the passenger arrived in 1903 or later, looking for the board of special inquiry list, located at the back of the ship’s manifest, could give you more insight into the situation; however, even if such a list doesn’t exist for the passenger you’re interested in, it might still be possible to find additional records regarding this experience.What Did Luigi Do?
There were a number of reasons that an individual could be held for special inquiry. If the person was considered likely to become a public charge, additional inquiry to ensure that this would not happen would have been in order. Certain medical situations would likewise result in detention and inquiry. Such was the case with Luigi Graziano.

Only the Steerage?
It was not just the passengers in steerage who could be detained, though it was only the steerage passengers who were required to go through their inspections on Ellis Island. First and second cabin passengers were given their medical examinations on board and then permitted to land and be on their way, unless they failed some part of their examination. In such a case, they would then be transferred to Ellis Island for additional investigation or examination.For example, the case of Flora Cingolani, a second class passenger, who, upon her arrival, was taken to the Immigrant Hospital because she was found to have trachoma, a contagious disease. In many cases, having trachoma was an automatic deportation. Similar at its onset to conjunctivitis (“Pink Eye”), trachoma caused scarring of the cornea which could lead to blindness. Immigrants with trachoma were often deported to reduce the spread of the disease to others and to limit the possibility that blindness would leave the immigrant a public charge.The minutes from Flora’s board of special inquiry, which took place on 17 September 1908, the day after her arrival, give valuable information about her and her family. Of interest was that, though she was Italian, she answered the questions in English. She indicated that she had already been in the United States for approximately two years prior to going back to the old country to visit her mother and grandmother. We also learn that she had three married brothers living in Italy and that her father, Adolfo, had died five years earlier.

• Stefanoff P. Dentscho
• Alexander Gaidarzieff
• Anton Jurkszus
• Stanislaw Slomiczny
• Wladislaw Wiscardlowski

These five individuals, each of whom was supposed to travel on the ship to the Port of Galveston, appeared to get off the Hannover in Baltimore and disappear. Additional research also reveals questions about five other passengers:

• Ernst Debus
• Jonathan Henke
• Zdika Misa
• Kristine Starkel
• Peter Josef

At first glance it might seem there was a serious security issue at the Baltimore immigrant processing center, particularly if all ten individuals had managed to escape from a single ship. However, included in the file for this investigation were some original passenger lists that have been typed up, thus giving researchers a chance to view an original passenger list page rather than just the microfilmed versions. These lists showed that the second group of five had been landed in Baltimore legally and these individuals were detained in the hospital. As for the original five individuals, the steamship company ultimately plead guilty to their escape and paid a fine for each incident.Other interesting items discovered hidden away in this file include:

• The supposition that the North German Lloyd Steamship company may have been forcing immigr ants to purchase passage from Baltimore to Galveston, Texas.
• That a stevedore on another of North German Lloyd Steamship company ship had taken money to assist with a separate escape.
• The date and place of death of passenger Kristine Starkel.

Don’t Stop Looking
These are just a few of the immigrant stories hidden in the records that have been accumulated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its predecessors. As you conduct your search, you’ll find treatises on acceptable and unacceptable aliens and insights into quota laws driven by fear and misinformation. There are stories of individuals who suffered hardships, received kindness, got to stay in the country they saw as the land of opportunity, and those who were denied that same opportunity.Finding what you’re looking for may sometimes be difficult. Records for any one immigrant may be stored in a variety of boxes or files. While a few indexes to the papers found in Record Group 85 exist online at the Archival Research Catalog (ARC), this online catalog is far from complete. Another somewhat limited index available on microfilm is the Subject Index to Subject Correspondence [and case files] of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1903-1956, microfilm publication T-458, available through the Family History Library (FHL #1527605-1527635).Some of the stories you&rs quo;ll find will leave you wanting more genealogical details. Others will send you searching through multiple locations for more information. Even if you can’t find files that specifically relate to your immigrant ancestors, the wide variety of files that exist from the Immigration and Naturalization Service will offer you better insight into the experiences of all immigrants arriving in the United States. And some of the records might even help you better understand exactly what your immigrant ancestors and their contemporaries faced when trying to land in America.