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All other photos are Google Images
All other photos are Google Images
This week we are looking at a tutorial from Ancestry.com on Passenger Lists. The Tutorial is entitled 10 Things to Know About Passenger Lists. Ancestry has some very good tutorials and should be one of the places we go to learn more about the site, genealogy in general, topics specific to our task and for what is new.
As an aside:
{Last summer I attended a lecture at BYU about how Family Search and Ancestry compare. You can find it on this site http://tinyurl.com/bk9ul57 To return here just double click on the header photo above. Each have their pros and cons but used together you get the best results most of the time.}
I often think about what it must have been like after a long voyage and finally arriving here in America. The people must have been elated, apprehensive and even scared, not to mention exhausted, dirty and weary. Being checked in was probably not what they wanted to do when they first arrived. Think customs after a long journey, times several weeks crammed in steerage. I have probably seen too many movies but I see them holding their baggage and kids' hands in a crowded line where there was a lot of noise and confusion. Add in the various languages and dialects and lack of standardized spelling and I can only marvel that any of the information is accurate. It is amazing that we can glean so much from these lists.
Ellis Island 1904
Briefly here are the ten things to know to get started using the passenger lists:1. Dates: The US Government did not mandate passenger lists until 1820. Others exist from earlier dates but had little more than names and departure information and are usually found in books. In 1893 the Government added sixteen new fields for various information. Even more fields were added in 1906.
2. Details: The more details you have about your ancestor the better your chances of finding him/her on the passenger lists. One thing to remember is to start your search broad meaning do not put in all the information you have gathered on him in the search fields at first. You do not want to filter out your person by refining the search too much in the beginning. Add in gradually and whisk together...kind of like cooking!
3. Timeline: Take all the information you have already gathered about your ancestor and try to create a time line that will reduce the number of years he would most likely have immigrated. It is like being a doctor, in formulating your diagnosis you need to rule out certain possibilities.
4. Other Records: Rather then starting your search with the passenger lists find other information on other records like the census, death records, etc to have something to work with before you search for your ancestor. This is how you will create your timeline.
5. Names Games: Relax about the names that don't match up exactly as you think they should from a 21st century perspective. Remember the crowded noisy line! Search the web for ethnic equivalents and variations. Did you know that the name Black may have once been its German equivalent Schwartz? Who knew?
6. Search Secrets: Use wild card searches in which you replace some of the letters in a name to produce variations of that name. You do this by replacing a letter (or small groups of letters) with an asterisk * See examples in the lesson link below. It seems like the consonants remain more with the vowels replaced by wildcards, at first blush. That makes sense although more practice is needed.
7. Relatives and Friends: People often did not come over in neat, tidy, little groups like their nuclear family. Often the husband would come alone and the women and children traveled over later. Often times young adults and others traveled with extended family, in-laws, and even friends and neighbors from the little villages where they lived in the old country. Also some people traveled back and forth several times and earned the distinction of being called "Birds of Passage."
Read
more about it here:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/italian_immigration.cfm and
here http://www.italiamerica.org/id49.htm.
8: Canada: We always seem of think of Ellis Island and Immigration in the same breath. However, it was a lot less expensive for passengers traveling from Europe to enter through Canada and then cross the border into America. If your ancestor is not found in a port you are expecting him to be in, check all the ports of entry and the border crossings into America.
9. Page After Page: Some passengers lists are more than one page, especially after 1906 when more fields for information had been added. So always page forward and backward to see if there is a page 2 (little forward a back arrows are found in the top right hand area of the form) where you may find more information about your ancestor. Also in a similar way as you would do on a census record, be mindful of passengers from the same towns and villages as they may be related. People traveled in groups often including family and friends. Keep in mind that people on the same ship may have been in-laws and sometimes you can glean a maiden name this way.
10. Tips & Clues: This tenth entry on the lesson includes many little tips on how to read the passenger lists and look for clues about your ancestors. Find it along with a sheet of actual entries where you can practice deciphering what you can use as clues in the link below.
Next week we will have a second training on Passenger Lists with more hands-on experience. Thank you, Linda!
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