I recall reading somewhere, perhaps the
Ellis Island web site, that immigration officials deny that they ever changed
anyone's name. They claim they took the names as they appeared on the passenger
manifest and, if names were changed, people did it themselves to
assimilate.
My grandfather also came from Holland
without his name, Monje, being changed. His ancestors, however, had changed it
from a French spelling (variously Monie, Monier, Monnier) one or two
generations after coming to Holland, evidently to keep the French pronunciation
in Dutch phonetics.
Best,
Scott Monje
When my grandfather came over from Holland -
speaking no English - in 1890, no immigration official changed his name from
Riepma to, say, Roberts. When the architect Gaetan Ajello came over in
1906, no one changed his name to Adams.
What was it about European Jewish immigrants
- many of whom did not speak Yiddish or Hebrew or use a "different" alphabet -
that caused officials to change their names so frequently?
Christopher
Gray
Office for Metropolitan History
246 West 80th Street, #8, NYC
10024
212-799-0520 fax -0542
e:
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www.MetroHistory.com