Most immigrants to America came through New York City, either at Castle Garden or Ellis Island. But New York isn’t the only port on our coast, nor were Castle Garden and Ellis Island the only places for immigrants to land. Port cities line up and down the east coast, and on the west coast as…
When you think of your ancestors coming to this country, you probably picture them coming through Ellis Island, with the Statue of Liberty in the background. But another building existed before Ellis Island, and 8 million immigrants passed through its doors between 1855 and 1890. This building was known as Castle Garden. A fort called…
“After the final no there comes a yes, and on that yes the future world depends.” Walter Stevens Recently retired Antonia Vega had loved her life as an English professor and was looking forward to enjoying some rest and travel until her beloved husband died unexpectedly in a car accident not far from their home…
We met at Aspen Drive Library on March 5 and covered a lot of ground. A couple of people had had the opportunity to re-examine their research, and in both cases this second look brought them new information. Lesson learned: go back and look your research over a second time. We wend over the immigration…
While researching a family story about brothers who emigrated from Sweden, genealogists on Facebook were the ones who helped me the most. My great-grandfather Herman Peterson was born in Sweden and lived in Princeton, Illinois after he came to America. As the story goes, Herman had a brother who emigrated with him from Sweden; one…
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