The Ships Did More Than Just Process New Arrivals
The passenger ships did more than just carry immigrants across oceans. They kept detailed records of the passengers, which would supply United States immigration inspectors vital information about each person coming in to start their new life. Barry Moreno of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum told History.com, “This document would be crucially important when the immigrants got to New York.” Ships could provide Ellis Island officials with the names, ages, occupations, destination, and other details that might aid the process. Passengers were given tags to wear, stating their number in the ship’s manifest, helping to make the process go smoothly even if the immigrant couldn’t communicate with the U.S. immigration official. Once on Ellis Island, if the information from the manifest matched what the immigrant told inspection officials (including names; it is a common myth that officials “Americanized” immigrant names), and they passed the health checks, they were usually free to leave.