> and the entire article is basically saying - without any proof whatsoever - that it has never happened, not a single time, ever in the history of the millions

> and the entire article is basically saying - without any proof whatsoever - that it has never happened, not a single time, ever in the history of the millions of people who have arrived there. First—for proof you dig into the linked articles. Second, that “never, not a single time” interpretation is a bad interpretation of the article. The article should be read as ordinary language and not like a mathematical paper. The process at Ellis island was to check the manifest. There’s not much opportunity to change somebody’s name when all you’re doing is looking up their name on a ship manifest. The article was presumably written because people like reading articles about common misconceptions.