Lorri ~ Look at the upper left corner of their homepage. Immediately under "CastleGarden.org", you'll see three rectangular boxes "About Us", "Search", and "Timeline". You'll want to click & use all three. This is one of THE major search sites for European ancestors arriving in NYC prior to Ellis Island's opening - do try to get it to work for you. Perhaps if you used a different browser, it will work better? I use Opera & FireFox with no problem - so far!  It's absolutely (at this point) free to search, though they ask for donations. If they are helpful to you, consider making one. Although it's not set up to allow you to see the original documents, it will give you info on your ancestors that includes the ship they arrived on and date. With that info, you have several options available to you to see the original document (hey - you may totally disagree with the transcriber's interpretation!): 1Go to the National Archives (NARA) branch where that film can be seen (Washington has all the films, NYC has NYC manifests, Phidelphia has Baltimore's, etc) - free to search the films, though an 11 x 17 copy cost me $1.50, I think, 2 years ago. The NYC librarians were EXTREMELY helpful and even directed me to a microfilm of a 1930 Brooklyn directory that had my father listed with his brand new first wife. 2Buy the microfilm that contains that ship's info from the National Archives - cost $85/roll includes shipping. They no longer rent films. You can keep the film forever and pass it down in your family, donate it to a library or society after you're through, or cut it up into Christmas tree ornaments. 3Check if any major historical/genealogical societies within driving distance already has the NARA films 4See if your library can get the film through inter-library loan (perhaps from your state library) 5call your nearest Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) to ask where the closest Family History Center is and order the film through them (for a modest shipping fee), or go to FamilySearch.org and use your zip code to get the same info (bottom center of the homepage). Castle Garden's director is Dr. Ira Glazier who, with co-editor P. William Filby, produces the enormous (and somewhat flawed) series, GERMANS TO AMERICA, and other scholarly works (ITALIANS TO AMERICA and MIGRATION FROM THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, etc). So it's not a fly-by-night website. Good luck! Julia --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Lorri <[email protected]> wrote: ...there is nothing to click on lorri

Hi, Lorri. On Castle Garden's web page, if you move your mouse pointer over the words in the upper left corder, you should see some of them change color. They changes from green to orange. When you see them change color, that is a link that you can click on. SEARCH is the middle of the top three right below the CastleGarden.org name. Not all links on CastleGarden.org change color, just those 7 links in the top left corner. Dave juliasgenes wrote: > Lorri ~ > Look at the upper left corner of their homepage. Immediately under "CastleGarden.org", you'll see three rectangular boxes "About Us", "Search", and "Timeline". You'll want to click & use all three. > This is one of THE major search sites for European ancestors arriving in NYC prior to Ellis Island's opening - do try to get it to work for you. Perhaps if you used a different browser, it will work better? I use Opera & FireFox with no problem - so far! > > It's absolutely (at this point) free to search, though they ask for donations. If they are helpful to you, consider making one. Although it's not set up to allow you to see the original documents, it will give you info on your ancestors that includes the ship they arrived on and date. With that info, you have several options available to you to see the original document (hey - you may totally disagree with the transcriber's interpretation!): > 1Go to the National Archives (NARA) branch where that film can be seen (Washington has all the films, NYC has NYC manifests, Phidelphia has Baltimore's, etc) - free to search the films, though an 11 x 17 copy cost me $1.50, I think, 2 years ago. The NYC librarians were EXTREMELY helpful and even directed me to a microfilm of a 1930 Brooklyn directory that had my father listed with his brand new first wife. > 2Buy the microfilm that contains that ship's info from the National Archives - cost $85/roll includes shipping. They no longer rent films. You can keep the film forever and pass it down in your family, donate it to a library or society after you're through, or cut it up into Christmas tree ornaments. > 3Check if any major historical/genealogical societies within driving distance already has the NARA films > 4See if your library can get the film through inter-library loan (perhaps from your state library) > 5call your nearest Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) to ask where the closest Family History Center is and order the film through them (for a modest shipping fee), or go to FamilySearch.org and use your zip code to get the same info (bottom center of the homepage). > Castle Garden's director is Dr. Ira Glazier who, with co-editor P. William Filby, produces the enormous (and somewhat flawed) series, GERMANS TO AMERICA, and other scholarly works (ITALIANS TO AMERICA and MIGRATION FROM THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, etc). So it's not a fly-by-night website. > Good luck! Julia > > --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Lorri <[email protected]> wrote: > > ...there is nothing to click on > lorri > > > > > > For all the latest News, please visit our Homepage: http://www.germanyroots.com > > Please visit and participate in our new forum > http://www.germanyroots.com/phpBB3/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > -- Dave Researching Surnames Marshall, Broemsen, Blaetner, Pugh, Schlicher, Kennedy, Harmison Located in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and ??? Dave Marshall N8OAY [email protected] N8OAY's Railfan Help Desk http://www.railfanswelcome.com

I found this section of the Steve Morse site - it goes into more detail about Castle Garden and other NYC processing centers and where info can be found - scan down about 1/3 of the way through the long document. "2. Castle Garden (and earlier) Search Forms and Ship Arrivals" http://stevemorse.org/onestep/onestep.htm