|Ellis Island Museum| Recently I was browsing through my
mother's collection of genealogy books. I happened to stumble
upon Ancestry's Guide to Research: Case Studies in American
Genealogy (Ancestry, 1985) by Johni Cerny & Arlene Eakle. I
decided to pull it out and give it a read. Imagine my surprise
to find this nugget (p. 14) about Ellis Island: "Cerny, a
Slovakian surname that is spelled Cierny, denotes the color
black. Jan Cierny (pronounced chair-nee) had his name changed
when he arrived in the United States to John Cerny (pronounced
sir-nee) by Ellis Island processing clerks. His wife had her
name changed to Theresa Zahorec." Both Johni Cerny and Arlene
Eakle are respected professional genealogists. Are they right or
is this a mistake? So I ask - What is the definitive answer
about name changing at Ellis Island? Did name changes occur or
not? Photo Credit: photo by Jeff Pearce and used under the
creative commons license.