Ellis Island Mistake Corrected
Four generations of descendants of Annie Moore Schayer, the first immigrant to be processed on Ellis Island, gathered yesterday in New York for the first time to celebrate her rediscovery — and their own — and to raise money for a headstone for her unmarked grave in Calvary Cemetery in Queens.
The first contributions, of $500 each, came from Brian G. Andersson, the city’s commissioner of records, and Patricia Somerstein of Long Beach, N.Y., Annie’s great-niece. They donated their share of a $1,000 reward they received from a professional genealogist.
The genealogist had been seeking clues to support her suspicion that a woman who died in Texas in 1923 and had been embraced by history as the Ellis Island Annie Moore was somebody else entirely. It turns out the Texan Annie Moore was not an immigrant at all.
Read entire article at NYT
The first contributions, of $500 each, came from Brian G. Andersson, the city’s commissioner of records, and Patricia Somerstein of Long Beach, N.Y., Annie’s great-niece. They donated their share of a $1,000 reward they received from a professional genealogist.
The genealogist had been seeking clues to support her suspicion that a woman who died in Texas in 1923 and had been embraced by history as the Ellis Island Annie Moore was somebody else entirely. It turns out the Texan Annie Moore was not an immigrant at all.