Chris, It's odd because both "sites" had to use the same film from which to get their own images. Debbie Chris Smolinski wrote: >> Using ancestry.com search on the name Ignacz Chociaj, arrival 1903 >> at the port of New York. (the given name is still transcribed >> incorrectly). Note the incredible difference between this image and >> the one provided by Ellis Island web site. >> > > Hi Debbie, > > Yes, I've noticed that the scanned images on Ancestry are much better > than the Ellis Island site (they seem to have a higher depth (more > shades of gray). Often when I find a manifest of interest via a Steve > Morse search from the Ellis Island site, I'll switch to Ancestry to > view it again, if I am having a difficult time reading it. >

>Chris, > >It's odd because both "sites" had to use the same film from which to >get their own images. It seems Ellis Island produced lower quality digitized images from the film. Perhaps to speed up the scanning process, or to save storage space / bandwidth. Since the FHL is digitizing their microfilms anyway, maybe they'll eventually get to the immigration films, and are using the existing EI scans to quickly get them online. -- --- Chris Smolinski Black Cat Systems http://www.blackcatsystems.com