Vesta, I've got to stop you on the point you're trying to make about Ellis Island; because for the most part, what you are saying simply did not happen. The ship manifests that contained the names of the passengers were created by the ship captains who transported the immigrants to the United States.
The responsibility of the officials at Ellis Island was to make sure the names on the manifest matched up with the immigrants on board; they were not allowed to change names, except under permission from the person whose name they were changing. NOW, I'm not saying it may not have happened a few times by accident, but this whole rigmarole about Ellis Island officials changing the surnames of passengers just isn't the case.
Case in point, one of my ancestors sailed over here from Havre, France. She was Hungarian, and had a name of "Boriska Moravcek". She had four children, a sister, and her husband's name listed in the manifest, all spelled correctly on the manifest. She made it through Ellis Island, with no mistakes being made on any of the names, and later chose to change her name to a simpler Barbara Morovchek.
My source is from my mother's 15+ years in researching our families genealogy. She can't say I never learned anything from her. 
Thank you, perhaps this information I received was Before Ellis Island was up and running---who knows.
My mothers side came to Canada from France with a name that today is spelt 5-6 different ways. They shortened their name to 4 letters when they opened a boarding house as the French were not that well thought of in Mass. at that time. It still is pronounced the same as the original that has 9 letters.
My older sons family's grandfather came from Finnland. Both great grandparents came here from Finnland. It was only after the death of his fathers father, that his birth certificate was found and it placed his country of birth as Russia.
Wars for a long time moved the boarders in that part of the world back and forth so one brother born in a Russian town and his brother born a year later in the same town was born in Finnland.
What was the song from the 40's ----Take me back to Constantinople, no I can't go back to Constantinople - it is now Istanbul.
Then closer to home, in Europe the Christian Churches that saved the children of familys that were Communists, Gay, Jews and Jehovah Witnesses among others that had to forge birth certificates for the children to change the last names spelling to keep them alive.
Battle, please pick through my statements of what I was taught and if anything is incorrect, correct me as I hate being uninformed about the things my teachers taught me.
