If you missed last Tuesday’s USCIS History Office webinar, “Married at Ellis Island…., 1892-1924,” you missed a good one. I won’t review all the details, but here are a few tidbits: It’s estimated that perhaps 300 women a year “married at Ellis Island” to their intended spouse in lieu of deportation on the grounds of “likely to become a public charge” or risk of falling into prostitution. The “Record of Detained Aliens” (title may vary) that follows the regular passenger lists for a given vessel (on microfilm or online) may have the notation “married” or similar words as a part of the information for the detained woman. The marriage record will be found in the New York City marriage records for that period which are online on Ancestry.com. A marriage on the alien woman’s date of arrival or during the day(s) she was detained is a good clue that the marriage happened “at Ellis Island” and was a requirement for her admission to the United States.
webinar
The Law and Reasonably Exhaustive (Re)Search
You won’t want to miss the webinar by Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL, entitled “The Law and the Reasonably Exhaustive (Re)Search” which was presented this evening (19 December 2017) and is available for free viewing for the next week. As Judy shows with very persuasive examples, you cannot possibly understand the contents of a record unless you understand the law that caused the record to be created.
Many of my own articles on federal records take that approach–with varying degrees of specificity–depending on the nature and purpose of the article.
Often, the reason the record was created is often as interesting–and sometimes just as informative–as the record itself.
Context is everything. History and the law provide that context.
The Twelve Key 