Darke County Society to Host Roger Minert at Workshop Oct. 1

On Oct 1, 2005 The Darke County Genealogical Society, chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society, is having its annual workshop. The speaker is Roger P. Minert . His topics are Communicating with Agencies and Individuals in Europe, Which Hessen is Which, Surname Change in Northwest Germany, and Question and Answer Session.

All this for $22 with lunch for pre registering $25 at the door.

Alice Huffman, society president, tells OhioGenealogyBlog, "Our workshops are not to make money, but to help the genealogist. Every year we try to get some one who has not spoken in southwestern Ohio and Indiana.

The society's website has a downloadable registration form at http://dcgs.dcoweb.org/#events

More on Castle Garden Immigrant Database

Since my earlier posting about Castle Garden and its immigrant database, I found the following in the New England Historic Genealogy Society eNews #230 August 3, 2005:

Castle Garden Website Launches

Millions of Americans are descended from the immigrants who crowded through the gates of Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. Many people are unaware that Ellis Island opened quite late in the nineteenth century, and prior to that time immigrants were processed in other facilities. Castle Garden (formerly Castle Clinton) in the Battery was responsible for handling incoming passengers from 1855 until closing its doors in 1890. During that time, millions of immigrants entered America. In 1896, Castle Garden was converted into the New York Aquarium, one of the first public aquariums in the country.

The New York Times reports that according to an analysis of census calculations by Joseph P. Ferrie, professor of economic history at Northwestern University, about 30 percent of native-born Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived between 1820 through 1892 through the Port of New York. About 18 percent are related to immigrants who came through Castle Garden and 9 percent to arrivals at Ellis Island during its peak, from 1892 to 1924 .

The Battery Conservancy was founded as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit educational corporation in 1994 to rebuild and revitalize The Battery and Castle Clinton National Monument. To commemorate the sesquicentennial of the opening of Castle Garden as an immigration center on August 1, 1855, on Monday the Conservancy launched the new www.CastleGarden.org website

New FREE Castle Garden Immigrant Database

I have just explored the relatively new and FREE Castle Garden Immigrant Database--and I’m quite impressed.

Castle Garden's dates of operation were August 1, 1855 through April 18, 1890. The Barge Office then became the point of entry until Ellis Island opened in 1892.

On another mail list, listers have reported that according to David Bromwich of The Battery Conservancy, the completed database will contain twelve million records - 8.5 million people who entered through Castle Garden and 3.5 million who entered the Port of New York between 1820 and 1855 and between 1890 and 1892. The total records include not only the Castle Garden period, but the period between the closing of Castle Garden in 1890 and the opening of Ellis Island in 1892 when the Barge Office was processing records. The Barge Office was also located in the Battery. Reportedly, Ira Glazier has been coordinating the project for them, and has included a number of records from other ports that have been important in his research. This explains the presence of the New Orleans port records.

This will be a very valuable research tool for searchers for 19th century immigrants. And plans call for it to be even more valuable. From the website: “Currently the site hosts 10 million records, and support is needed to complete the digitization of the remaining 2 million records, beginning in 1820, from the original ship manifests.”

Going to , I searched for Heinrich Scheppelmann who arrived in New York from Germany in 1853. The website provided the information below:

CastleGarden.org

Name: Heinrich Scheppelmann
Occupation: Unknown
Age: 25
Sex: M
Literacy: U
Arrived: 1853-10-19
Origin: Germany
Port: Bremerhaven
Last Residence: Nienburg
Destination: New York
Plan: Unknown
Ship: Matilda
Passage: Unknown

By comparison, the Ancestry.com Immigrant Database, which is available by subscription, provided only the barest information for Heinrich.

Ancestry.com
Name: Hein Scheppelmann
Year: 1853
Age: 25
Place: New York, New York

To get additional information, I am directed to consult German Immigrants: Lists of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New York, 1847-1854, With Places of Origin, Gary J. Zimmerman and Marion Wolfert, compilers. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987. I was directed to consult p. 131 to find additional information.

Happy searching.