Washington DC: Coming to America, April 18

What was it like for our ancestors to arrive at Ellis Island?

Learn about the experience with Barry Nove at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, on Sunday, April 18.

The program takes place at Beth El Hebrew Congregation, 3830 Seminary Road, Alexandria, Virginia. The event begins at 1pm with the main talk at 2pm.

Barry Nove will share the story and the techniques he used to learn what it was like for his ancestors and many of our own to arrive in America through Ellis Island. He began his family history quest when he organized the first family re-enactment tour of Ellis Island, filmed by PBS as background material for a 1997 genealogy documentary series, "Ancestors."

Nove received unique access to the Ellis Island Museum, worked with its archivists and gained understanding and appreciation of what his grandparents and great-grandparents experienced.

On his journey he gathered photos of the ships his family arrived on from Bremen, Danzig, Hamburg and Rotterdam; naturalization documents, passenger manifests and historical research.

Fee: JGSGW members, free; others, $5. For more information and directions, visit the JGSGW site.

They came in these ships

Would you like to see the ship your ancestors arrived on?

The Steamship Historical Society of America (SSHSA), founded in 1935, has launched an interactive archive to document more than 40,000 lost and forgotten steamship images, 1850s-1980s, preserving two collections.

One collection includes 2,000 fragile large-format glass plates from many US regions, while the other includes 38,000 color slides of ships, ports, steam engine trains, and people, photographed by Edward O. Clark. An historian and organization benefactor, his collection was acquired by SSHSA more than 10 years ago. It was deteriorating and the glass plates had faded as well. The SSHSA received a grant to clean, restore and preserve the collections and make the images available in an online, searchable database, called "Image Porthole;" click here to view.

Located in East Providence, Rhode Island, SSHSA’s mission is to record, preserve and disseminate the history of engine-powered vessels for education, information, and research purposes.

It has some 2,500 members in 43 countries, and maintains one of the largest North American archives devoted to engine-powered vessels, with more than 100 collections containing in excess of 400,000 images.

I was alerted to this new resource by Elizabeth Powell Crowe of Crowe's Nest Genealogy Blog. Thanks, Elizabeth.