When U wrote that their names were changed at Ellis Island, i assume U meant that they were changed from the manifest versions. Their names were sometimes already written as STEVAHN in S.Russia... The St. Pete records will bear this out. What is interesting is that the spelling variants seem to be tied to the socalled "decade" files... When spelling variants slip in it is sometimes hard to determine the reason. Was it the scribe at the church office? Or was it a member of the "tribe" who had a "better" idea... Or did it happen later < from microfilm to database >? It helps of course when a name is based on known German words to figure out what the name should be / could be... For instance one can see BUCKFINK in the St. Pete records... which is an unlikely variant. Most likely the transcribers had trouble with the name BUCHFINK and scribbled it down as Buck-fink ... A BUCH is a "beechtree". So the name means Beech-finch. From: JACOB STEVAHN : My family line is Gottfried & Christina "Lang" Stephan; Andreas & Karolina "Reich" Stephan; Johann & Elizabtha "Frey" Stephan; Michael & Barbara "Imhoff" Stevahn; Jacob & Olga "Martell" Stevahn and me Jacob Jr. Stevahn. ----- Original Message ----- From: JACOB STEVHAN To: JM_on_GR_G Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2004 12:17 PM Subject: Re: Stevahn family roots Jay Thank you for the help, I will give it a try. Here is some information I have at this time. Again thank you ................................. My Grandparents when coming to the USA was listed as "Stefan" on the manifest, and his brother and his wife was listed as "Stephan". Both their names were changes at Ellis Island to Stevahn, (however I'm not sure that is when the change took place). I hope this will help and that I have answered you're question. If any further information is needed please advise. Thank you so much; Jacob