Before 1830 or 40(I'm guessing) the only records kept were those kept by the family. Many times after government immigration records were maintained if the name was too difficult it was altered. I know one man who's family came from Lithiwania the immigration people listed his great great grandparents as Kasper. But for family records the original name has been lost. There is another who's name had the "von" removed. Another had "van" removed and they were both listed as German. von is German van is Dutch. The great potato famine of 1845-1850 saw hundreds and hundreds of Irish comming through New Orleans and Galveston from Europe and just as many Chinese comming through San Francisco but for different reasons. Sometimes nothing was recorded. Irish and Chinese were harshly descriminated against. In California the only legal job a Chinese could hold was laundry and railroad work. On the eastern seaboard there are photographs of stores with signes in the windows saying "Help Wanted. Irish need not apply" I suppose you could boil it down to descrimination, ignorance, laziness, indifference. things to day are much more accurate. for example this Vietnamese name written properly is Nguyen and is pronounced Win. The standards of 150 years ago applied here would today render these names Win and Nguyen as two different lines.

Probably no way to track it at all. They probably came here so early that no records were kept. The family may have some records of some sort, church, etc. but officially they are Americans only. Who cares anyway?????