> I know my ancestors came over 1867-1868. A mother and three > children travelling together. I have searched from 1865-70 on > CastleGarden, Ancestry, NARA, etc. Their surname is Cohen, but I > have searched under the Cohen variants (Kahn, Cohn, Kaplan, and many > others) to no avail. I have searched on first names also. There > were three children, Abraham, Lena and William. I have searched on > their first names, possible hebrewe names and variants thereof, > leaving surname field blank. I have been to the JewishGen site > which was no help at all. US naturalization records that early > yield no information other than "country". They were Russians who > came from Poland, but may have travelled through Germany or the U.K. > > Are there missing passenger records in this time frame. NARA > records seem to be especially light in these years? > > Can anybody help me break through this stone wall? > > "Andrew Cohen" <andyco50@verizon.net> Bad news first: NARA estimates more than 20% of all passenger lists disappeared before NARA got them. Ignore that. (g) Did you search under the wife's maiden name? Did you limit your search to the port of NY -- Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, are also strong possibilities. Did you search for abbreviations of the given names (i.e., Abram for Abraham, Lina for Lena, etc)? And finally, did you allow for indexer misreadings (my ancestress is in the index with a b where t ought to be, and that obscured her for 20 years!). Did you look earlier than 1867 or later than 1868 -- Cynics notice that, as John Colletta says, people would remember the name of the ship (incorrectly), get the day of the week, the day and month right, but be off by up to 5 years on the year...sooooo, if you know when he was naturalized, start looking 2 years prior to that date and go back. And at Castle Garden and Ellis Island, the less info you give it, the likelier you are to find what you're looking for. A wife and minor children generally weren't named in his naturalization papers and were rarely naturalized on their own. Some people have found gold in the First-papers, though, so if you can HIS first-papers you may get lucky. If you've already tried all that, then start a log (in Notepad if necessary). Write down every thing you've checked, every name you've hunted for, why you know this or that ... then explain your problem in grim detail to someone who knows zip-city about genealogy. I've had good luck with both those approaches (much as, you learn a subject better by teaching it than by studying it). Good luck, and sorry I can't be of direct help! Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>