Speaker: Mark Arslan

 

Come learn about ship manifests from Mark Arslan who is a 30-year resident of Cary (originally from California), retired after 35 years at IBM Corporation. His ethnic background is a mix of British, Armenian, French, and German. He has been researching his genealogy for over 52 years. Mark's paternal grandfather (an Armenian from Turkey) immigrated to the United States in 1906 through Ellis Island.

When ship manifests became available online around the year 2000, Mark began abstracting ship manifest entries for Armenians coming to America. He currently has about 70,000 ship manifest entries that he put into a free searchable online database for use by other Armenians researching their ancestry. Mark is also a moderator of the Armenian Genealogy group on Facebook (over 12,000 members). Mark's experience in using ship manifests and other American primary source material from the time period 1850-1940 is relevant for others researching their family's immigration to America, regardless of ethnic origins.

Visit our 2021 Events page to access the registration link.