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b'Why the New York Times is Wrong \\u2013 Using Basic Genealogy Tools and Methods to Show that Your Family Name Was Not Changed At Ellis Island.\\n\\nThere is a common misconception, call it an old wives tale or an urban legend, that family names were often changed at Ellis Island.\\xa0 Such myths gain a great deal of credibility when newspapers such as the New York Times, the country\\u2019s \\u201cpaper of record\\u201d, perpetuates these myths by repeating them, in this case in obituaries.\\n\\nWhen Kenneth saw one of these obituaries a few years ago, he wrote to the Times pointing out their error and suggesting sources that they could check to verify what he was saying.\\xa0 When they seemed to ignore him, he did the research on the family of the person named in the obituary and was able to show what the name was when the family immigrated and how the family name changed as they adapted to life in the United States.\\xa0 He sent all of the proof to the Times and was still ignored.\\xa0 Finally the Times responded.\\xa0 They were not going to do anything to correct the erroneous obituary but suggested they might do a news story on the issue. \\xa0The experience led him to do a search of other Times obituaries with the Ellis Island story.\\xa0 He located about half a dozen.\\xa0 After doing the research on each, he was able to show the original name for each of them.\\n\\nKenneth A. Bravo received his JD\\xa0from\\xa0The Ohio State University,\\xa0College of Law and his B.A. degree in Economics\\xa0from Rutgers University,\\xa0New Brunswick, New Jersey. \\xa0He is Vice President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) and,\\xa0the former president and\\xa0current member of the Board of Trustees\\xa0of the\\xa0Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland. \\xa0Bravo has lectured on a number of genealogical topics.'