I would like to subscribe to either ancestory.com or the Ellis Island site. I have copies of the manifests of my grandmother, father and aunt. I've not been able to locate one on my grandfather who came to New York from Italy a year, or possibly two before my father. The ancestory site states it has manifest information on my mother coming over here. I've not been able to locate it on the Ellis Island site. Does anyone have a preferrence of one site over the other?
Thanks ahead of time for any information.
~michelle~

As far as I know Ellis Island is a free site, while Ancestry has a fee.
Ellis Island keep only NY Passengers Records while Ancestry holds, in addition to those, BMD records, Social Security Index, Obituaries and many other.

Michelle..

Whenever possible, try to use free subscription sites first. Ancestry is a great site, but very expensive so always best to access it once you have exhausted all other sites.

Steve Morse is a free site requiring registration of a username name and password. It accesses ship manifests from the Ellis Island up to 1924 and has a better search engine.........definitely register that one.

Another great site is Family Search and more specifically Family Search Pilot. You will be able to access quite a bit of info there, and again, it requires registration of a username and password, but is free.

There are more.. I have just started compiling some Useful Links here. Maybe it will help.

Thank you so much! I am in awe at the help I've received on this site! From reading past posts and from the few questions I've asked, I have received valuable information. I had come to a stand still, in my search, and now it looks like things are moving forward again. The challenge, in my family search, is in trying to hunt much of this information down myself. It's been a great learning process.
Everyone here is totally AWESOME!
~michelle~

Thats what we're here for. Let us know if you need anything else!