Researching Your Family Tree Online - Moving Past Beginner Basics

Dig out what you can with the facts you have, but don't waste a lot of time looking around aimlessly. You could be looking for years! The author mentions searching for her husband's grandfather, James Jewel, on EllisIsland.org. This is a great Web site with information on many American immigrants, but is only one of many U.S. ports of entry. A search there just wasn't really warranted by the previously learned information. We already know that James Jewel was most likely born in New York, so he won't be found among the Ellis Island manifests. His parents may have immigrated through Ellis Island, but nothing in the article even indicates that the author knows that they were immigrants or where they were from. In this case it would be better to gather what information can be found about the family in the U.S. before searching for immigration records.

The 1920 U.S. Census we found in the previous step stated that Martin D. Jewel, father of James Jewel, was born in Berlin, Germany; immigrated to the U.S about 1885; and was naturalized in 1892. Further research helps bear this out - the 1910 U.S. census indicates that he immigrated in 1883, and the 1900 U.S. census, which lists him with his parents, states that his father, Julius Jewel immigrated in 1885. Which leads us to...