My great-grandfather and his parents came over from Sweden in 1903. Their original last name was Nilsson and was changed to Nelson. I have no idea whether this was done by immigration officials or whether they chose to change it. Here is the ship’s manifest on arrival at the Port of New York, which lists them as Nilsson, and then all later records (census, naturalization) they use Nelson. So, I’m not really sure how that happened.
My mother’s family name is Riley, which is Irish and may have originally been Reilly or O’Reilly, or some variation, but we don’t have any records going back as far as when that branch emigrated.
My great-grandfather and his two brothers came over together from Lithuania and left Ellis Island with three different last names. My great-grandmother, also from Lithuania, was recorded as being named Katherine even though her name was actually Charlotte.
My husband’s great grandparent’s came through Ellis Island with a borrowed trunk from Sweden; it was labelled with another family name, and that’s the family name they took from then on. They’ve done well, regardless.
I thought there was a Straight Dope story confirming it was a myth, but I can’t seem to find it.
Our family name was actually lengthened, but not by any immigration official. The Germanic z being prounounced ts, my ancestor stuck a t before the z so people would say it correctly.
When tracing your ancestors anywhere, it’s common to find variations in spelling. People sometimes took a fancy to spell it another way, and in an age where government took less interest in running our lives it wasn’t likely to be challenged.
One branch of my father’s family spells and pronounces their name differently than the rest (majority) of the family. I was always told that the difference originated at Ellis Island. But then, after my parents passed away, I found my father’s birth certificate . . . and discovered that his name used to be spelled the other way. My father was born 8 years after his parents came to this country. What I finally discovered is that that one branch has the original name, and the entire rest of the extended family all changed their name about 13 years after they came here. And the name isn’t all that different from the original. Nobody is still alive who can explain why they did this.
My family name was changed at the time my grandfather emigrated to the U.S. - but it was his decision to lop off the last syllable, not something done by immigration officials.
They tried.
My maternal grandfather’s family was/is named Walkowski.
I remember seeing a packet of ancient mail belonging to my great-grandfather. It was mostly official, government stuff. I was curious because they were addressed to “Frank Wall.” Guess he never took the hint.