|Ellis Island Museum|
Recently I was browsing through my mother's collection of genealogy books. I happened to stumble upon Ancestry's Guide to Research: Case Studies in American Genealogy (Ancestry, 1985) by Johni Cerny & Arlene Eakle. I decided to pull it out and give it a read.
Imagine my surprise to find this nugget (p. 14) about Ellis Island:
"Cerny, a Slovakian surname that is spelled Cierny, denotes the color black. Jan Cierny (pronounced chair-nee) had his name changed when he arrived in the United States to John Cerny (pronounced sir-nee) by Ellis Island processing clerks. His wife had her name changed to Theresa Zahorec."
Both Johni Cerny and Arlene Eakle are respected professional genealogists. Are they right or is this a mistake?
So I ask - What is the definitive answer about name changing at Ellis Island? Did name changes occur or not?
Photo Credit: photo by Jeff Pearce and used under the creative commons license.