Can you tell me which years your ancestors arrived? And when you wrote to NARA, did you already have the exact date of arrival and ship? Thanks for all the information. Take care. Susan W.

Sandy - Just in case, the earlier e-mail was not clear, I was asking you which years your ancestors arrived and to which port. Thanks. Susan W.

Hi Susan, That was an open question for a very long time! There were six members of my family that emigrated together, and each member gave varying dates of arrival over the years. Ultimately I found that they arrived May 25, 1883, but only after a year and a half of scouring individual manifests from 1880-1885. I finally found who I thought were them and sent for the manifest for that ship and date. Not long after, Ancestry offered an index for those years and they showed up there. That manifest page was extremely readable. NARA told me that their equipment wouldn't produce a clearer image. Ancestry must have had better equipment at the time. Every system and provider has its limitations, so it pays to use them all when possible. Even at that, if I hadn't been reading the manifests for "like" groups of people, it would have been easy to overlook them. Parents with four sons and matching ages for the parents were the strongest clue, since only one of the sons had a first name I recognized on the manifest. Thankfully, I have been able to verify that manifest against other sources; primarily naturalization records and land files. Hope I didn't go on too long! Sandy