Manifest

Forms carried titles such as List or Manifest of Alien Passengers, and the ship's master swore to their accuracy. From the 1890s federal inspectors used the manifest to question each arrival and wrote admission or rejection on it.

Lists were begun abroad, often when the ticket was bought, so names were taken down near the immigrant's home. The story that inspectors at Ellis Island changed names is seldom supported: they worked from lists already made and were told not to change them.