We have decided to check out Ellis Island today and book the statue cruise which also includes access to the walk around the green lady.

So, we head out by subway it's an hour from Washington heights 191st street straight to South ferry stop. When we arrive, we walk south to the river and board the boat. In a matter of minutes, we are at the Statue of Liberty and disembark to walk around the path and get a few cheeky snaps, it's so busy here - some people even have professional photographers in tow! We then make our way to the boat and queue for about 20 mins before boarding for Ellis Island.

In the 1890s- 1960s Ellis Island was a key component in the American immigration process, anyone accessing the US via New York had to come through here and so all associated records are kept here also.

We have a 45-minute audio tour included you should really allow 3 hours for this trip though there's so much to see. We walk through the hall where 5000 people at a time would wait to be processed and then move to the medical hall where they were examined, it's so fascinating and quite eerie. Lastly, we pay $7 for 30 minutes on a computer which allows us to access records of people who would have travelled here. Jacq enters O'Donnell from Donegal and sure enough there are 328 records of that surname from Donegal boarding at Derry to New York from 1894 you can view the actual manifest with their signatures on them which also records how much money they had at the time - it's amazing to see! Matt researches Robins, his surname was changed years ago to include two bs' and he finds one record from Hastings and two others from Brighton - so interesting we'd love to do a family tree. Although Jacqs tree might take some time given these records!

We walk back to the ferry grab some snacks and head home to our Airbnb pad.