My grandfather arrived at Ellis Island from Lithuania in 1912. The immigration officer asked his name. My grandfather told him. The officer asked, "How do you spell that?" He shrugged. The officer wrote it down the way he thought it sounded. Same scenario with every government official he dealt with, so there is no consistency in the records. Years later he unofficially adopted a shortened version of the name. Bottom line, it's gonna be tough to track down my ancestors in the old country.
My wife's late mother was an Australian war bride, married an American soldier in 1944 and came over with him in 1946. We made our first visit to Australia a few months ago, and met several of the cousins. At the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, we found the names of my wife's great-great-grandparents, and their infant son, on the passenger manifest of the vessel Ward Chipman, which sailed from Bristol England to the new settlement of Melbourne in 1841. They were subsidized settlers, not convicts. Tough trip; there were about 200 passengers on that 100-day voyage. Enroute 22 died, and seven were born. The ship's namesake Ward Chipman, by the way, was an attorney who represented Benedict Arnold.