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Carole Mikita Reporting More than 95% of us in America are descendants of immigrants. Each one of them has a unique story and now there's a new way to find out how they got here.
Tens of millions of people traveled to America by ship. Now, one company has compiled the names of all of those passengers into one collection and they have a voice again.
Lawrence Meinwald, Polish immigrant 1920: "We ran out to the deck and there were people of all denominations, some on their knees, making the sign of the cross, Jews, in their prayer shawls, as we were passing the statue of liberty. It was the first time I saw it. It was a great sight."
100-million people passed her between 1820 and 1960. Their names appear on those ships' passenger lists and are now found as a collection at Ancestry.com.
Tim Sullivan, CEO, Ancestry.com: "Seeing a name, a handwritten name, of a relative, an ancestor who came to the United States is such a tremendous moment."
These lists, he says, are different from the census. They memorialize each of the individual journeys to America.
Tim Sullivan: "To risk everything, to leave their world behind, and family members behind, to come to the United States, was extraordinarily courageous."
On a passenger list from a ship sailing from Norway in 1939 is the Von Trapp family, made famous in 'The Sound of Music. On another is then former President Theodore Roosevelt and international sensation, Harry Houdini; they had their picture taken together.
But the more important names to us belong to our family members who made those difficult journeys.
Estelle Belford, Romanian immigrant 1905: "I remember my father puttin' his arms around my mother and the two of them standing awhile and crying. And my father said to my mother, ‘You're in America now and you have nothing to be afraid of.'"
During the month of November this immigration information from Ancestry.com is free.
