The Clerk Who Wasn't There
Everybody's family says the name got changed at Ellis Island, so we pulled the manifests, a 1913 court case and the archives to find out who actually held the pen.
Ruth and Danny · 24 min · 13 Oct 2026
About this episode
It's probably the best-known family legend in America. Great-grandpa steps off the boat, a tired official can't spell his name, and the family walks out with a new one. Ruth pulls the actual paperwork: passenger lists written up in Europe when the ticket was bought, inspectors who checked those lists instead of rewriting them, one strange exception in a New York Public Library post, and a Brooklyn man named Frederick Persky who went to federal court in 1913 to change his own record and was turned down. Danny defends the family version the whole way through.
The verdict is Better Than True. Usually the person who changed the name is in the family photos, not at the inspector's desk. We also cover where the paper trail of a name change is kept today. Historical immigration files are moving from USCIS to the National Archives, and comments on the proposed rule (docket USCIS-2026-0331) close October 20, 2026. Requests for transferred files go to archives.gov/research. This week's question for your parent: When did we start using our name, and who decided?
Hosted by Ruth and Danny, from real reporting. Supported by SagaSeal.
Sources
- journals.ala.org/index.php/dttp/article/view/6655/8939
- archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/fall/ellis-island-manifests-1
- archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/fall/ellis-island-manifests-2
- smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-did-ellis-island-officials-real
- nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island
- uscis.gov/records/genealogy/genealogy-notebook/immigrant-name-changes
- jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/ellismythnames.html
- digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38250/m1/364/
- digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38250/m1/365/
- syfert.com/federal/district/cases/cl-8803600/in-re-perkins
- exa.ai/library/legal/opinion/jw1n80jy7hm
- timesofisrael.com/jewish-americans-changed-their-names-but-not-at-ellis-island/
- federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/21/2026-17119/genealogy-program-regulations-to-clari
- govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-21/html/2026-17119.htm
- courses.washington.edu/berlin09/Readings/Welzer_Grandpa.pdf
- geneamusings.com/2026/10/added-and-updated-familysearch-record_01810372944.html
- theyhadnames.net/2024/11/21/putting-familysearchs-experimental-full-text-search-to-the-tes
