ANSWER A FEW QUESTIONS, PLEASE

Immigrants spent anywhere from two hours to a day or more at the immigration center. A series of questions had been asked on the ship over, and now inspectors asked the same questions again to see if the answers matched. They asked questions like these:

1. What is your name?

2. How old are you?

3. Are you married or single?

4. What is you calling or occupation?

5. Are you able to read or write?

6. What is your nationality?

7. Where was your last residence?

8. Which U.S. seaport have you landed in?

9. What is your final destination in the United States?

10. Do you have a ticket to your final destination?

11. Did you pay for your passage over? If not, who did?

12. Do you have money with you? More than $30? Less? How much?

13. Are you going to join a relative? What relative? Name and address?

14. Have you ever been to the United States before? Where and when?

15. Have you ever been in prison, in a poorhouse, or supported by charity?

16. Are you a polygamist?

17. Are you under contract, expressed or implied, to perform labor in the United States?

18.What is the condition of your health, mental and physical?

19. Are you deformed or crippled? Of so, by what cause?

Read information about Ellis Island and other immigration centers. Write statements about some of the things you would find there as an immigrant.

Courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society