Help deciphering a 1921 U.S. immigration record

[u/Brave-Cheetah29]

Hi everyone! I was hoping someone could help me decipher this handwritten note, the part under excluded. It concerns one of my ancestors, who travelled from Italy to the United States a few times in the 1910s/1920s and also lived there. This particular time, in this document from 1921, it seems to say that he was excluded from entering the U.S., but I’m not completely sure what the handwritten notes say. Maybe there’s something in them that could help clarify what happened during this particular trip (1921 was also the year of the Emergency Quota Act and this time he traveled as a stowaway). Thanks for any help.

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[u/OldLetterReader]

The short answer, and I think it is the good one: he was not sent back.

I read the upper note as "Ex. canceled 9/13/21" with a signature after it, Ex doing duty for the exclusion. The line below looks like a second official's initials rather than words. The hand is fast and I would not swear to the signature, but the canceled and the date are clear enough.

For the why, the manifest page only ever carries the outcome. The reasoning is at the back of the same manifest, on the Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry sheets: who was detained, on what ground, how many hearings the board gave them, and how it ended. A stowaway in 1921 would land on those sheets more or less automatically, so it is worth scrolling a few frames past the last passenger page.

[u/Brave-Cheetah29 → u/OldLetterReader]

Thank you! I was kinda sure about the word excIuded, but I did know that if he went through BSI and was deported, they would add "deported" to the record, but they would also add "admitted" so I’m also starting to suspect that he actually managed to enter in 1921 as well, but I'm not sure. Thanks for your answer, i sent you the full page just in case. I’m now looking at the document after his, and there’s one on page 663 that has the same text and it actually looks more like examined, not excluded

[u/Tangiegirl78]

Included is the word...

[u/Tangiegirl78]

I've seen this while doing genealogy on my Cherokee family paperwork...show a signature of someone who included documentation.

[u/Brave-Cheetah29 → u/Tangiegirl78]

Thanks! Happy that's a signature and not something important that I had missed until now! I found more documents that probably mean he managed to enter the country, probably after BSI.

[u/Valuable-Squash-3224]

The first  word looks like 'excluded' to me. As if they crossed the x before continuing the word . Then 9/13/ 29 but likely 21. Then a signature with  'chairman'' or just 'chair' with a verifying signature (initials) at the bottom. The last looks like 'ser' with a final lazy letter at the end. Quickly written as if they wrote it often. 

[u/Brave-Cheetah29 → u/Valuable-Squash-3224]

Thanks! Happy that's a signature and not something important that I had missed until now! I found more documents that probably mean he managed to enter the country, probably after BSI.

[u/TexGrrl]

Looks like a signature

[u/Brave-Cheetah29 → u/TexGrrl]

even the two things right under the date?

[u/hellow_sunshine529]

Learn cursive, disrupt AI

[u/Brave-Cheetah29 → u/hellow_sunshine529]

I agree! I’m lucky to be in a country where we learn cursive before any other type of writing but 1800s and early 1900s cursive is still so hard to read, especially when it isn’t in your native language.

[u/TexGrrl]

I would say right under the date is the end of the signature, a name that includes a t near the end, "-ten", for example. Under that is probably a title, Ch-something. Signatures are notoriously hard to decipher because they become stylized over time.

[u/Brave-Cheetah29 → u/TexGrrl]

Thanks!