Castle Garden, Ellis Island, and All Other Points of Entry

[CBHagman]

I was online this morning looking for more information on immigrant ancestors and stopped by the Castle Garden website again, where, I'm pleased to say, there's a bit more detail in the search forms than I recall.

So if you have a relative who may have come through the Port of New York prior to the opening of Ellis Island, stop by here, and remember that you might need to use alternate spellings and wild cards in your searches:

http://www.castlegarden.org

On another website, I found a harrowing details about arrival in the New World and why Castle Garden was put to use as a station:

http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/ia/entrywayAtCastleGarden.aspx

Previously in New York, where the bulk of U.S. immigrants landed, ships arrived in any number of scattered docks. Here, the immigrants often received their only welcome from thieves and opportunists waiting to take advantage of the often bewildered arrivals. Harper’s Weekly described the conditions facing an immigrant by stating, “It was well for him if, after having been robbed of all he had, he was not beaten to death…” The Board of Emigration Commissioners for New York decided that a centralized landing depot would provide the best solution. In their 1855 report, the Board declared the benefits of Castle Garden: “First. – To the emigrants…In the greater safety of their effects.”

Castle Garden was, of course, succeeded by Ellis Island:

http://www.ellisisland.org/

I've made extensive use of that site in the past, and was particularly pleased to see the ship manifests had been digitized, the better to look at actual records of your relatives' journey, and to put the lie to The Godfather II version of things and also help researchers catch transcription errors in the database.

There are also ship images!

I've not needed to use any resources pertaining to Angel Island, but in my searches I found the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation:


http://aiisf.org/

To other DUers, what websites do you employ for finding ships, immigration records, etc.?