Roots: Myth busting, Ellis Island edition

We’re all familiar with the claim that immigration officials often changed the names of newcomers as they came through Ellis Island, but the Tampa Bay Tribune reported a while back that researchers say the legend probably is untrue. 

The newspaper noted that passengers were listed on a ship’s manifest before they left their home ports. Those lists usually were compiled by people of the same nationality as the travelers. So the names on the manifests would have been spelled correctly. 

At the other end of the journey, officials in New York examined manifests and tickets for correct identification of the new arrivals. The names on the tickets had to match those on the manifests, so there was no reason for officials to botch names. 

Names did get changed, the newspaper reports, once immigrants began settling in. Teachers may have renamed children whose names the teachers could not spell or pronounce, for example. And immigrants sometimes changed their own names, to hasten assimilation and make it easier for them to get work. 

My French-Canadian ancestors never passed through Ellis Island. They simply rode south from Québec, by train or some horse-drawn vehicle. Names were changed once they got here, but it was done intentionally. 

My Canadian-born paternal grandfather, William Carrière, moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1899, when he was still a boy. He later dropped the final “e” from his name and, with it, the accent on the first “e.” That transformed the surname from “Carrière” to “Carrier.” 

My grandfather died a few days before my fifth birthday, so I never got a chance to ask him why he made the change. But it’s reasonable to assume that “Carrier” sounded more “American” to him - and to potential Yankee employers in early 20th-century New England - than did “Carrière.” Quel dommage! 

I’ve thought of changing my name back, to restore its proper spelling, but I’ve yet to do so. It is possible to carry such things too far, after all. When my sixth-generation grandfather - William Carrier's ancestor - emigrated from France to New France (Canada) in the 1600s, the family name was Lebrun dit Carrière. Now, that’s a mouthful that it's wise not to revive.