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BS: People called Kerry
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Subject: BS:People called Kerry From: greg stephens Date: 16 May 04 - 06:53 AM There are plenty of people called Kerry (surname or Christian name), but I've never met anyone called (for example) Donegal or Offaly. Why would this be? |
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Subject: RE: BS:People called Kerry From: Peace Date: 16 May 04 - 11:41 AM Damn good question. I have never met anyone named Kalamazoo or Tuktoyaktuk. Sorry to answer a question with a question, but why is THAT? while you're busy answering Greg's post. Thank you. Herman Swaketwitzeroffen |
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Subject: RE: BS:People called Kerry From: Bill D Date: 16 May 04 - 12:36 PM perhaps "Kerry" has a secondary derivation besides the county... |
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Subject: RE: BS:People called Kerry From: GUEST,sorefingers Date: 16 May 04 - 12:45 PM Kerry is also a hebrew word ... else John Kerry's Czech jewish grandfather was mistaken.. He is NOT BTW even vaguely Irish. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Ebbie Date: 16 May 04 - 01:33 PM "...by decree of 17 Dec 1901 of the Austrian Statthalterei in Vienna the name Kohn was officially changed to Kerry (for Fritz, his wife Ida, geb. Löwe, and their son Erich) " Although I understand that Jewish ancestry is traced through maternal lines, rather than through the father, I'm glad that John Kerry is Jewish by blood. It's about time we had a Jewish President- and this is one way to get one. This country is about diversity if it is anything at all. Next time: a woman. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: CarolC Date: 16 May 04 - 01:38 PM John Kerry did not get his name from having Irish ancestry on his father's side. The family name was originally Kohn. Here's a story about it in Reform Judaism Magazine: http://www.uahc.org/rjmag/03fall/kerry.shtml |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: CarolC Date: 16 May 04 - 01:39 PM Oops. Looks like we crossposted, Ebbie. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: GUEST,Clint Keller Date: 16 May 04 - 06:02 PM I always thought it was cool to be named after the place you're from: Judy Chicago, Utah Phillips, Tennesee Williams & like that. Irving Berlin. But I can't make it work for me. "Clint Idaho" doesn't come at all trippingly from the tongue, though I hear there's a Clint, Texas. "H. Clinton Panhandle" has a certain dignity to it, but not quite the image I intended. I think the best I came up with was using my first name and the place I (mostly) grew up: "Harry Bonners Ferry." This has a certain swing to it, but it lacks what I believe they nowadays call "gravitas." I just don't know. clint |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: greg stephens Date: 16 May 04 - 06:30 PM How about Kerry Mills, composer of many fabulous tunes(Redwing, Whistling Rufus etc). Was that Irish. or another change from something Jewish? People are very keen to jump in and point out that Kerry the American chap is Jewish. Is this a big significant thing in American politics? We had Disraeli 150 years ago as Prime Minister in Britain, and I think people are pretty isedto it now over here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Bill D Date: 16 May 04 - 06:52 PM This country was founded by good old God-fearing, righteous Christians! I can show you web pages which "prove" this! We don't trust no politicians with allegiance to foreign religions and such like that! Next thing you know, we'll be having some Muslim guy running for president, and we.....we.......oh, I can't even do a decent job of writing a PARODY answer....but I trust you get the point.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: robomatic Date: 16 May 04 - 07:22 PM Kerry is as Jewish as George W. Bush. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Ebbie Date: 16 May 04 - 08:43 PM I know nothing about the bush's ancestry- although I could take a good guess!- but I would imagine that knowing one's grandparents were Jewish or black or white (for that matter) or gay or 55 years old when they became parents would affect oneself somewhat, in some way. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 May 04 - 10:26 PM Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline in Eastern Russia. The family passed through Ellis Island. (They changed the name sometime after Ellis Island). SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: dianavan Date: 16 May 04 - 11:39 PM Lots of people changed (or had it changed for them) at Ellis Island. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Ebbie Date: 16 May 04 - 11:59 PM My last name is Bontrager. If I were to publish something or be in the public eye in some way, bet your booties I would change my name. I would want something that people can pronounce. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: pdq Date: 17 May 04 - 12:01 AM ...from the classic song "Jug Of Punch"... what more diversion can a man desire? than to court a girl by a neat turf fire, a Kerry Pippin and the crack and crunch and on the table a jug of punch too ra loo ra loo........ |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: CarolC Date: 17 May 04 - 12:54 AM I would think that having Jewish ancestry would work in Kerry's favor at this point in US history. My pre-married name was Cunningham, which I understand was originally somehow associated with a place name. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: GUEST,Clint Keller Date: 17 May 04 - 01:47 AM SRS, Next you'll be telling me that Judy Chicago, Utah Phillips, and Tennesee Williams weren't named that at birth. Must you destroy all my illusions? I wouldn't be surprised if you doubt Robert Indiana and Emil Nolde, too. clint |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: greg stephens Date: 17 May 04 - 03:24 AM To get away from name-changing and Jewishness for a minute, my original query was basically"how come some place-names give rise to common names, and other superficially similar place-names don't?". Which means looking at the question of when and how place-names turn into people names. I suppose. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Nerd Date: 17 May 04 - 12:41 PM Kerry, as it happens, is NOT an example of a place name that became a person's name. Many of the others given here are in fact nicknames or stage names, so they would not be passed on to children and don't really count. So the extent to which this process really happens hasn't been proved. Here's one part of the answer: when foreign names enter English, they get changed to a familiar word that sounds similar; hence Irving Berlin. So that's one way this might happen, and in this process the place name must be very familiar. An obscure county like Leix would be less likely to supply a name than Kerry, Dublin, Cork or Galway. A whole country, like Ireland, can become a name, as can a big city. I know a Judy London--I'm pretty sure she's Jewish so it probably was not her family's original name. Probably taken because Lodovnik or Lodznik (or whatever) was too hard for the Ellis Island folks. London would have been used purely because it was familiar. A county like Offaly or Donegal might not be used because there might not be names in other languages that resemble them, or because they might have negative connotations (Offaly sounds a lot like both Offal and Awful). In the middle ages people were called things like "Richard at the Lee," etc, so we get geographic names like underhill, etc. These would have to be locally distinctive; surnames began as a way of distinguishing one Jehan from another. Place of abode, occupation, parent's names, or physical features could be used. So Wat Underhill would be distnguishable from Wat Brewer, Wat Jamieson, and Wat Long. In these cases, it would be purely local place names rather than counties or cities. So those are two ways it might happen. In neither case would it be likely for an obscure town or county to give its name to a person, though a geographical feature and a common or familiar town or county might. Anyone have other thoughts? |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 12:56 PM NOBODY had their names changed for them at Ellis Island. That's a myth. People changed their names on their own, usually once they arrived here and saw where the job prospects were. There was no "name change policy" administered to immigrants. There is not a single shred of evidence, not a changed manifest, not a piece of paper, a book, a passport, that says "This is now your name _______________". It just didn't happen there. Wait--there's one execption. A lot of couples were married at Ellis, because unaccompanied young women weren't allowed intp the U.S. (for fear they'd become fallen women!), their fiances had to meet and marry them there. The old double standard. And in the old practice about married names, I'm sure they arrived as "Miss Smith" and left as "Mrs. Jones." Clint, think how lucky you are. You can change your name. Curmudgeon has already been taken, however. :) SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 01:19 PM Nerd, We cross posted. You wrote:
There were people working at Ellis who were fluent in many languages. This wasn't a case of an English speakers-only staff facing a wall of foreign language speakers. There were many people working at Ellis who had immigrated themselves, or whose families immigrated earlier and they spoke other languages fluently. No one had trouble with someone else's language and said "that sounds like this in English, use this name." Think about it. The average inspection took only a couple of minutes. Most immigrants were only on the island for a couple of hours, tops. You climb the stairs, you speak with someone who (in your scenario) doesn't speak your language, and you don't speak theirs. And in those two minutes they somehow convey to you that instead of using Lodovnik you're now to use London? And you'll remember that name that is in a foreign language? No, it just didn't happen that way. And people are packrats, they keep important papers. A slip purported to tell you your new name would be important, and would be kept, along with immigration papers, birth and marriage certificates, etc. Many of those documents have made their way back to Ellis, but not one form saying that "this is your new name." And how would the immigration people keep track of new names? If they did change names, they would have to keep records, jotting a new name down on some record sheet or perhaps the manifest. But it didn't happen. People can come up with all of the annecdotal Ellis Island name change stories they want, but if you want to ask someone who worked there and spent years researching the topic of immigration through Ellis Island, you now know the truth of it. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Nerd Date: 17 May 04 - 02:14 PM SRS, My points above are not contingent on an Ellis Island scenario. Let's put it this way: people often change their names from something that sounds foreign in their new country to something that sounds familiar. In this case, a more familiar place name like London is going to work better than a less familiar one like Longfathom. On the Ellis Island issue, it isn't necessarily a question of a policy. Let me give you an alternate scenario. You're not an idiot, but a very smart European coming over to the US, named Lodznik. You have learned a few words of English already in preparation for your journey. At Ellis island, they ask your name. "whoah!" they say, "that's tough. How about something like 'London?'" As a very smart European who wants to set up a business, maybe blend in as best you can, you say "I'll try this London! Why not?" There's no paper trail, no malice intended, no ill-feeling engendered, no mandatory new name assigned. But the name changes. Also, why would one assume there would be a "name change" form? Why would they have to keep track of "new names?" Why wouldn't the original immigration papers have the new name? If it's the only name they have in the records for someone, how would we know if it's their original name or not? Many of the "new" Irish names, for example, were Anglicized spellings of Gaelic names. In those cases, the "new" name would be the only one in the records. I personally know a person whose father's name was changed from Mann to Goldstein because the staff at Ellis Island did not understand that Mann was his name. They kept asking for his surname, he kept saying "Mann," and they would not accept it as his name, until he gave his mother's maiden name, which was Goldstein. Why this was hard for them, I don't know. By the way, many anecdotal stories from people with no reason to lie and no axe to grind sometimes beat a party line given out by employees, methinks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 04:39 PM The park service does have party lines, but this isn't one of them, Nerd. For many years after working there I continued my research and wrote freelance articles about Ellis. And who better to know exactly what is a "party line," but one who works there? Those who are in the position to present them don't always do what they're told, just because they KNOW this is the preferred format. (NPS during the first two or three years of operation at Ellis told us to absolutely NOT collect personal stories, saying that it would "invade the privacy of those individuals." It took them a while to figure out how dumb that idea was.) Despite the relative antiquity of the period in question, the law required the steamship companies to keep very good paper records. If a company brought over anyone who was not entitled to enter the U.S., that company had to bear the expense of detaining the person at Ellis and their transport back to their country of origin. If the individual was minor, they paid for a parent or other responsible adult to accompany them back. It became critical that those manifests be accurate regarding the personal and legal information for each immigrant. There were always manifests, and they became more and more strict through the years. Despite the difficulties that states and feds and various agencies have with finding and keeping track of immigrants today, there was a degree of competence in tracing them 100+ years ago. You missed my point about the amount of time spent on Ellis and what actually happened during the inspection. Thousands of people a day went through there, and regardless of whether they had decided to change their names or not, the staff didn't have time to change names all day long. You had to have papers that corresponded with the legal information on the manifest. If you didn't match that information, or if you appeared to be unable to enter the U.S. one you got there, then you were detained. You didn't arrive at Ellis and tell them you were "Smith" if the name on the manifest and your papers said something else. Those who passed through the inspection successfully left Ellis with the same name that was reflected on all of the papers that they had when they reached the island (unless, as noted above, a marriage took place on the island). Many annecdotal stories from people who have "no reason to lie" may well be told because they have reason to want to latch onto what is a charismatic larger story told, mistakenly, about an ancestsral trip through Ellis Island. I have a name change story in my family, in my mother's generation--my aunt married a fellow from Turkey whose name caused enough difficulties that they shortened it by a couple of syllables. But it didn't happen at the airport when he flew into the U.S. and went through U.S. Immigration questioning! There are plenty of jokes that make the rounds about name changes at Ellis, and believe me, we were pretty good at telling them, and visitors would share theirs with us. Names did get changed, and the intent to do so may have been born at Ellis or on the ship on the way over. But of all of the pieces of paper issued to 12 to 16 million immigrants at Ellis, not a single piece has come back to document that a name was changed there. So annecdote is just that, an annecdote. A fond story passed through time. It's the folk process, but it isn't the same as history. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: robomatic Date: 17 May 04 - 05:41 PM Stilly, I have two contradictions to your article about gratuitous name changing, one an old story and the other as recent as yesterday. My uncle once told me he was eating at a Chinese restaurant in New York and the waiters had little name tags. His oriental waiter's read "Israel". He asked the waiter what his name was and the reply was "Israel Horowitz". How did that happen my uncle asked him. -Well, it was the name of the guy ahead of me in the immigration lineup. - That sounds crazy- said my uncle -what's your name originally? -Sam Ting. And just last night the Simpsons had to re-immigrate to the United States, from France this time. They were told by immigration you're names too long. From now on you're the Simps. -Saves Time said Homer. So Stilly, I think you're going to have to check your documents as to immigration policy because the above examples are rather blatent. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: GUEST,Clint Keller Date: 17 May 04 - 05:49 PM "Clint, think how lucky you are. You can change your name. Curmudgeon has already been taken, however. :)" Actually, I knew that, and I wish it were not so. Nothing to be done, though. Pity. :( clint |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Once Famous Date: 17 May 04 - 06:08 PM Nerd seems the closest to what I had always heard. Many name were simply unpronouncable or unspellable to the immigration officials at Ellis, so names were Americanised right there on the spot so the paperwork process could be moved along. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 07:12 PM Yeah, it's what you've heard, but think about it. If you don't want to change your name, would you change it because someone at Ellis Island says you should? Or would you just go along and use your own name once you're off the island? Do you really think that many people came through, had their names changed at Ellis, and didn't protest? More than a few would ask "write that down for me, so I remember it?" but not a note of this has turned up. You could give me a new name in Chinese, but if you said it to me once or twice in the course of a conversation that only took a couple of minutes I would not only not be able to remember it, if you wrote it down for me, I couldn't read it. That was much the case for individuals immigrating to the U.S. I realize this is an uphill battle towards dawning comprehension that just because this is a popular story it doesn't make the thing true. It's an American myth, name changes at Ellis, but this goes up there right along with the stuff immigrants believed about the U.S. before they got here--the streets paved with gold and the vast American cornucopia. Not only were the streets not paved with gold, they often were bare dirt and immigrants paved them! That cornucopia required back-breaking work in fields owned by other people. How does one go about getting a job paving streets, building railroads, in agriculture, in mines, in packing houses, etc? If your name is similar to the person who does the hiring (an Irish surname if it's an Irish foreman, etc.) OR if your name is short enough or Anglicized so it's easier to remember, then your chances of employment are greater. You want to get a job as a domestic worker in an American household? Do you think the mistress of the house is going to call you by a long complicated name if she doesn't speak your language? Then shorten your name. These are just a few possible scenarios from the workplace that make the rounds in the scholarship associated with immigration interpretation at parks and museums. Robomatic illustrated my point by presenting a couple of examples of the jokes that are out there. (I saw that Simpsons also--great show!) The man who is the waiter would have in actuality handed over paperwork and that would have been compared to the manifest, he wouldn't verbally give his name (assuming any Chinese WERE processed at Ellis, which was highly unlikely, because the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and it's indefinite extension in 1904 kept out all Chinese immigrants for most of Ellis' history--they were only at Ellis if they were being deported after coming in illegally through Canada). One joke that got frequent requests is the Rockefeller/Sean Ferguson one. One of our Yiddish speaking rangers told that one particularly well, and when Hadassah groups came out for tours he'd invariably have someone ask if he was married because she had a daughter. . . SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: GUEST Date: 17 May 04 - 09:13 PM About the Kerry-Jewish connection, it was John Kerry himself who told the story a reporter and I simply repeated it here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: robomatic Date: 17 May 04 - 09:28 PM I am Alaskan doing a stint in Boston so I've been paying attention to the Boston Globe which has pretty much dug up more on Kerry than HE ever (admitted that he) knew. The story of his grandfather is poignant. The issue of name changing is, of course, as old as names themselves. I recall reading in Sarum how many English families changed names during periods where money talked exceptionally loudly, so that it is not necessarily true that those of high social rank in the UK of today may have descended from those of substantially lower rank of yore. Rutherford by way of illustration has two of his family lines switch prestige as it were. Meanwhile, the history of Ellis Island is quite a great one, it having handled a truly massive influx of the tired and poor (and persecuted). some of the facilities there have been cleaned up and turned into a wonderful visiting museum if I remember my reading correctly. I appreciate Stilly River's attention to detail in the posts above. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Once Famous Date: 17 May 04 - 09:43 PM I don't. It is a popular story and true as I perceive it. One told to me by many of my grandparent"s generation. And so what of the myths and the legends of America. It was better than what they had, especially the persecution. Most were only to happy to try to carve out a better life. No one is saying life was easy at all for these immigrants. But they still keep wanting to come here for a better life, don't they? |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 10:42 PM Madeline Albright learned late in life about her Jewish family roots. It came as quite a surprise because her family hid it very well. Kerry's story is pretty interesting. Here's a link to a Canadian Polish-Jewish site that has posted the story. Here's a snippit:
But he said he had no knowledge about his grandfather's origin, other than the vague idea that he was from Austria. He said he had long tried to learn more, at one point stopping in Vienna and trying to reach Kerrys listed in the phone book, in a fruitless effort to trace his roots. Kerry's genealogy was traced through a variety of means: immigration records from Ellis Island, naturalization records on file in Illinois, death and probate records in Massachusetts, and a birth registry from the former Austrian empire. The immigration records showed that Frederick Kerry arrived in the United States in 1905, and the naturalization records showed that he was born in the town formerly known as Bennisch, in the Austrian empire, which today is Horni Benesov in the Czech Republic. Felix Gundacker, director of the Institute for Historical Family Research in Vienna, was hired by the Globe to examine the Austrian records, which he translated from the original German. He found that birth records for Bennisch include a notation for a person named Fritz Kohn. The birth record says: ''In the year 1873, on May 10th, was born Fritz Kohn, a legal son of Benedikt Kohn, master brewer in Bennisch, House 224, and his wife, Mathilde, daughter of Jakob Frankel, royal dealer in Oberlogau in Prussia.'' The record has a notation that Fritz Kohn changed his name to Frederick Kerry on March 17, 1902. That record does not mention a baptism. But the family says Frederick Kerry was a Catholic, and he is buried at a Catholic cemetery in Brookline. Most immigrants came for economic reasons in the days of Ellis Island, as they do today. But quite a substantial number were fleeing persecution. Oscar Handlin's The Uprooted takes a lucid look at the various factors that forced families off of the land. Primogeniture was a factor, according to him. Dividing the pie too many times doesn't leave enough for anyone, but giving the land to the eldest son often means all of the other siblings must move on. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Nerd Date: 18 May 04 - 03:02 PM Good thing Kerry didn't have to go through Ellis Island. They might have mistaken his ancestral home for his name, and he'd have become Horni Benesov. With a name like that, he could only have made it as a Porno actor! Okay, bad joke. Here's another: SRS is obviously part of some huge government conspiracy to whitewash all the rampant name-changing that went on at Ellis Island. Just a little TOO eager to prove your position, I think. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: CarolC Date: 18 May 04 - 07:27 PM Since this thread is no longer just about place names, but also about people changing names, maybe someone can help me out with this. One of my son's great-grandfathers was named Ira Strouse. He immigrated to the US from Alsace-Lorraine. We think his name was probably Strauss or Straus originally (or maybe some other similar name). Has anyone got any idea what the chances are that my son's great-grandfather was actually named Strouse before he immigrated? Strouse is a pretty uncommon name, and we think it's probably an anglicized version of something else. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Hrothgar Date: 19 May 04 - 01:11 AM I heard a song once about somebody named Kerry Dancing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 May 04 - 07:18 PM "Too eager to prove my position?" What kind of conclusion is this, Nerd? You're usually pretty savvy when it comes to reporting and understanding complex issues and delving into scholarly topics. To have worked at the place for a number of years and have studied it much longer is a good position from which to answer these questions and address the misinformation that has existed for decades. Do you need citations? I can give you an extensive reading list if you want to research this topic. I've begun pulling out some of my Ellis materials because the photos I took around the island from 1978 - 1980 are of interest for a number of reasons. I'm considering going back and reproducing a number of my photos from the same perspective and running them as before and after views in articles that discuss the renovation work. There is some quite innovative research going on with materials and techniques on Islands 2 and 3 (the hospitals and contagious disease wards, isolation wards, a brig, some public spaces, and housing for staff). Carol, there are questions to ask regarding that name. When did Ira immigrate? What information do you have about his city of origin, the port he left from, or where he arrived? There are lots of immigration stations in the U.S., not just Ellis Island. If he arrived before 1917 he didn't need to prove that he could read and could enter the U.S. If he was an adult or large child when he arrived, was he literate? He'd have been able to keep much better track of his name as it appeared on paperwork if he could read. Perhaps the name you refer to was just a typo that stuck through the years? Back in the period of "no Irish need apply" my father's family name changed. I find evidence of this around the turn of the last century when the family decided to drop the "O" from O'Dwyer. It came and went in the paperwork for a number of years. Who has the paperwork for that branch of the family? You might find several spellings, as I did. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: robomatic Date: 19 May 04 - 07:33 PM There were stories I heard about in the German principalities where the authorities mandated last names on their Jewish people who traditionally used patronymics; made Jews take on humiliating surnames, and if they wanted to change them they had to pay to have them changed. I've heard this from more than one source and I actually met someone whose family name was 'monkeybusiness' for that reaon, they had not changed it (It actually sounded pretty cool to American ears). so name changing is probably more common than most people realize. Didn't Vonnegut write a novel in which the narrator becomes President and has people take on different last names to sort of 'mix 'em up'? |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Nerd Date: 20 May 04 - 02:04 PM Test |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Nerd Date: 20 May 04 - 02:06 PM Sorry about the "test message, but I've tried to post to this thread with no result a few times. SRS, I was TOTALLY kidding. I accept that most "Ellis Island name change" stories must be apocryphal, based on your logic. If you look in my above post, I even identified my statement as a "bad joke." Sorry for the confusion. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 May 04 - 04:00 PM I did see that, but with some of the guest posts around here, it gets a little blurry around the edges. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 27 Aug 04 - 02:28 AM I don't know anyone called kerry, my next door neihbour was called Terry, but he moved out. [he was a right moany old basterd] |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: ard mhacha Date: 27 Aug 04 - 06:45 AM Greg Stephens, This year Kilkenny played Galway in the National Hurling League, a player named Kilkenny played for Galway, and I remember Alan Sunderland playing for Arsenal against Sunderland. I am sure there are many more to make the headline, "Sunderland scores against Sunderland". |
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Subject: RE: BS: People called Kerry From: PoppaGator Date: 27 Aug 04 - 06:01 PM I, for one, am mostly persuaded by SRS's debunking of the "Ellis Island Name Change" myth. I never worked there, but I have visited and studied about the immigration process. The facility was always staffed by bilingual/multilingual individuals (many of them immigrants themselves) who were prepared to speak and deal with incoming folks of whatever nationalities were arriving on a given day. On the other hand, I'm sure that the staff was working under severe time pressure most of the time, and undoubtedly resorted to simplified, phonetic, or "Anglicized" versions of some of the least familiar names on rare occasions. Over time, the extent of such alterations has undoubtedly been exaggerated. My own family name changed -- slightly -- upon immigration to the US: from Heneghan to Henehan. The family patriarch and first immigrant, my great-uncle Luke, undoubtedly decided to do so on his own. Both spellings can be found in Ireland, although the original (well, more original) spelling, with the "g," is still much more common than the simplified/Anglicized version. But -- neither Luke nor any of the family members who followed him came in through Ellis Island. Only steerage (3d class) passengers were processed at Ellis. After hearing about people being turned back -- I believe the story is that a fellow villager was sent back after contracting an eye infection during the voyage west -- Luke resolved not to make the move to America until he could pay for the much less risky second-class passage. Second class passengers stayed on the ship as it stopped at Ellis Island, and disembarked at the west side docks in Manhatten, where there was a much less crowded and less frantic immigration facility and where one could be met and shepherded through the process by one's "sponsoring" friend or family member. A few years later, his younger brother, my paternal grandfather, moved from County Mayo to Liverpool with his new bride to work for two years and save enough money for their second-class tickets. They had to buy three, because my Aunt Peg was born in the meanwhile, in Liverpool. They travelled via the White Star Line, on the very next passage after the Titanic disaster; family legend has it that the three of them would have been on the Titanic, but had to delay their trip when baby Peg came down with the flu. |
