Looking for your Welsh cousins in America?
Visit the New World Celts website!
In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, legend tells us that Ellis Island was named for a Welsh pub owner who gave the Island his name!Fancy a quick trip to the States while the dollar is still so low against the pound? Why not make your own amateur Welsh home movie, and share it with the world?
This is a perfect year to visit New York City, and while you're there, check out the Welsh history at Ellis Island. There's an electronic board where you can select 'Welsh' to see where all the Welsh immigrants to America are living today -- pretty cool!
Take a Welsh flag and a mini-cam along, and take some video or photos of you and your mates in front of Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building, The statue of Liberty, etc., and we'll post the streaming video here in the Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium at the end of the summer, just for fun!
Zoom Airlines now has cheap charter flights, non-stop Cardiff to Toronto. Spend a night in Toronto and visit the Welsh Speaking Canadian Chapel, celebrating their 100th Anniversary this summer with lots of festivities!
I suggest you get the Canadian Trains/Amtrak train from Toronto to New York City -- the scenic travel across New York State is worth the time and price! Either go to Montreal first, and then travel south along the Hudson River, or take the train past Niagara Falls and then via Buffalo to NYC.George Bush is bringing Ellis Island into the news again, with the Immigration Reform Bill that he's trying to pass. He's a lame duck, and the bill is flawed, but Ellis Island rocks!
According to Reuters:
Ellis Island's past returns in immigration row
By Daniel Trotta Thu Jun 14, 10:47 AM ET
ELLIS ISLAND, New York (Reuters) - Ellis Island, once the gateway to America for millions of immigrants, is having a make-over after years of neglect that nearly allowed nature to destroy a national treasure.
But experts caution that, in all of the nostalgia, the country should remember past debates over who should be allowed into the United States.
The restoration of the back end of the 32-acre (13-hectare) island in New York harbor comes as the immigration debate rages anew and President George W. Bush's reforms are stalled.
"I do think it's interesting that we worship Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and yet we want to pull up the gang planks now that we're here," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a history professor at New York's Columbia University.
Some 12 million immigrants, nearly all European, passed through Ellis Island before entering the United States, mostly from 1892 to 1924, though it remained operational until 1954.
Newcomers marveled at views of the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty on a nearby island, providing memories passed down through the generations.
As many as 100 million Americans have ancestors who passed through Ellis Island, where a French renaissance-style brick palace built in 1900 welcomed hardscrabble immigrants who left the Old World behind.
That main building, with its cavernous arrivals area and soaring ceiling, was repaired in the late 1980s and attracts ferries full of American and foreign tourists.
A new project led by a group called Save Ellis Island is attempting to raise public and private funds for a $250 million rehabilitation of a labyrinth of 30 buildings that were part of a 750-bed hospital for sick newcomers.
This follows the restoration unveiled in April of the ferry building, where processed immigrants boarded boats to New York City and the New Jersey shore.
Private donations for the restoration have come from rich Americans whose ancestors arrived through Ellis Island.
Gyda bob hwyl i bawb, Mark
Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.
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Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.
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© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods
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