Find Your Ancestor in Ships Passenger Lists

Visitors to the website Olive Tree Genealogy often ask  for a list of all the free ships passenger lists the site has published online.

 

Read the list at Find Your Ancestor in Ships Passenger Lists or Naturalization Records

52 Ancestors: Poor Elsie, Orphaned at 9 Months and Pregnant at 19

Elsie age 15 in 1913
on her way to Canada

Amy Johnson Crow has a new challenge for geneabloggers called Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy challenges genealogists to write about one ancestor once a week. 

Elsie Phyllis Markham was my great-grandmother. She was born in London England in 1898 to parents Albert Markham and Edith Finch. At the age of 9 months Elsie was orphaned when her parents died within a month of each other. 

Elsie's mother Edith was an illegitimate child born in the St. Pancras Workhouse. There does not seem to have been much contact with Edith's mother Martha Finch who had a total of 3 illegitimate children born to her while she was in the Workhouse. 

Elsie and my Grandpa Bert 1918

Baby Elsie and her two year old brother Frederick Markham were lucky enough to be taken in by an Aunt and Uncle but her 8 year old brother Albert Finch was sent to an orphanage. Several months after being taken in, the uncle refused to pay for the children's upkeep any longer.  Little Frederick was sent to a different orphanage than Albert, and Elsie was adopted by an older couple. 

Albert, who himself was an illegitimate child born in the St. Pancras Workhouse to his mother Edith Finch, was 8 year old when he entered Barnardo's Homes and at the age of 11 was sent as a Home Child to Canada. Letters exchanged between Albert and Barnardo's reveal that he was not treated well and ran away several times from his life of servitude and beatings. Eventually Albert was placed in the home of Roy and Mary Skinner of St. Mary's Ontario and there he found a happy life where he was treated as a son.

Frederick Markham

Albert was determined to reunite the family and began saving his money as a young teen so that he could bring Frederick and Elsie to Canada to join him. In September 1913, 23 year old Albert sent for 15 year old Elsie and she joined him in St. Mary's Ontario. 

His younger brother Frederick was an inmate of Miller's Orphan House in London until March 1914. He was18 when his older brother Albert paid for his passage to Canada. Sadly Frederick enlisted in the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) during WW1 and was killed overseas. 

Elsie, poor Elsie, got pregnant in August 1917. She was just 19 years old and alone in the world except for her brother Albert. One month later she married Bristol Holden but recent DNA tests have revealed that Bristol was not the baby's father. 

Elsie and brother Albert

That was a surprise but confirmed what my grandmother Luella always told me - that Elsie was "fooling around with the hired man Cooper and that is Bert's father, not Bristol Holden." We have narrowed the possible candidates to two men in the Cooper family. We do not judge Elsie harshly. She was young, alone and pregnant in 1917. What was she to do? Her options were limited! 

We do not know whether she told Bristol the truth before marrying him or whether she kept her secret and let him think he was Bert's father. It really doesn't matter because by all accounts they had a happy marriage. 

Read the Journal of De Bever, Ship from Holland to New York 1661

Wonderful news for thosewith early Dutch ancestors in New Netherland (present day New York)!

Thanks to Terry Vanderhoof, a translation and transcript of De Bever Journal of May-July 1661 is now on line at The Vanderhoof Project.

You may also view the "passenger list" (the list of names of those who owed passage money) for De Bever at Olive Tree Genealogy Ships Passenger Lists to New Netherland (New York) 1624-1664

Olive Tree Genealogy  asked Terry to tell us how this project to transcribe the ship's journal began. It's a fascinating story! You can read about it here

Free Immigration Records Victoria Day Weekend

This Victoria Day Weekend Ancestry.ca is offering 200 million historical immigration records from around the world for free, until May 21st.

Immigration and travel records tell the story of your ancestors as they made the courageous decision to immigrate, travel or become a citizen of a new country. With 200 million immigration records from Canada, United Kingdom, the U.S. and several other countries from around the world at your disposal, you may uncover the answers you’ve been looking for. Explore passenger lists, naturalization records, border crossings, crew lists, immigration and emigration books, passports and more as you discover your family’s journey to Canada.

The story of your ancestors’ journey to a new country is waiting to be uncovered. Search Ancestry.ca international immigration records for free, this Victoria Day Weekend only until May 21st.

Irish Famine Migration to New Brunswick, 1845-1852

I spoted this on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog Weekly Featured Database. In the Wake of Dark Passage: Irish Famine Migration to New Brunswick, 1845-1852 is a fantastic new database that is worth a look.

* Saint John Almshouse Records
* Brenan Funeral Home Records: Traces of Ireland
* Fitzwilliam Estate Emigration Books 1847-1856
* RS555 Provincial Secretary: Immigration Administration Records
* Immigrant Letters
* Newspapers
* Passenger Lists
* Teachers Petition Database
* Irish Immigrants in the New Brunswick Census of 1851 and 1861

Scottish Passenger Lists 1823-1829 Online

More Scottish Passengers Lists have been added to Olive Tree Genealogy.

These are partial lists, gathered from the names of those admitted to the New York Almshouse before 1830. The New York Almshouse records give details of the ship name, port of departure and place of origin of each individual (as well as the standard date of admission, age and so on)

This is part of an ongoing project to extract the names of passengers on board ships sailing from Canada, Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany and France, to New York. See Ships to New York 1800-1824


The following ships are now online:

* Ships Passenger List of Ship Comet Sailing from Greenock Scotland for New York
* Ships Passenger List of ship Friends sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York
* Ships Passenger List of Ship Camillus Sailing for New York from Greenock Scotland before
* Ships Passenger List of Ship Richmond Sailing from Greenock Scotland for New York
* Ships Passenger List of Ship Franklin sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York
* Passenger List of Ship Eliza Sailing from Dundee Scotland for New York
* Ships Passenger List of ship Tom sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York
* Ships Passenger List of Ship Hero sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York
* Ships Passenger List of ship Roger Stewart sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York
* Ships Passenger List of Ship Superior sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York
* Ships Passenger List of Brok or Brooke sailing from Greenock Scotland arriving New York

Ships Passenger Lists Ireland to New York 1819-1829

27 Ships Passenger Lists Sailing from Ireland to New York between 1819 and 1829 have been added to the current ships passenger lists online at Olive Tree Genealogy.

These are partial lists gathered from the names of individuals admitted to the New York Almshouse before 1830. The New York Almshouse records give details of the ship name, port of departure and place of origin of each individual (as well as the standard date of admission, age and so on)

This is part of an ongoing project to extract the names of passengers on board ships sailing from Canada, Scotland,Ireland, England, Germany and France, to New York. See Ships to New York 1800-1824 and 1825-1849
or choose Ships From Ireland 1825-1830

The following ships lists were added today:

* Ship Otis from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Ontario from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Prince from Dublin Ireland
* Ship John & Adam from Cork Ireland
* Ship Schuykill from Cork Ireland
* Ship William from Cork Ireland
* Ship Laurel from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Lord Strangford from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Louisa from Belfast Ireland
* Ship Wilson from Cork Ireland
* Ship Ganges from Cork Ireland
* Ship Henry from Cork Ireland
* Ship Dianna from Cork Ireland
* Ship Liverpool from Cork Ireland
* Ship Union from Cork Ireland
* Ship Trio from Cork Ireland
* Ship Hope from Galway Ireland
* Ship Marcella from Galway Ireland
* Amanda from Galway Ireland
* Ship Jubilee from Galway Ireland
* Ship Newry from Newry Ireland
* Ship Mary from Dublin Ireland
* Ship New England from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Thomas from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Hibernia from Dublin Ireland
* Ship Dublin Packet from Cork Ireland
* Ship Othello from Dublin, Ireland

New Sections On Ancestors At Rest

I have added some new sections to Ancestors At Rest in the last little while. The New sections are Newspapers, Institution Records, School Yearbooks, Ships Passenger Lists, and Naturalization Records. The New sections are not yet finished but I have made them live so I thought it would be OK to tell you all about them. It will take me a few more days to polish them up.

You can have a peek at the new sections by using the links below.

Institution Records

Naturalization Records

School Yearbooks

Newspapers

Canadian Ships Passenger Lists being indexed

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and Ancestry.ca will focus on indexing the Quebec City passenger lists from 1870 - 1900, totalling more than 750,000 names. The digital images of these and other Canadian ships passenger lists are already on the LAC website but can only be searched by ship name or date of arrival.

The index for Quebec City will be available free of charge on LAC as well as on Ancestry.ca. Eventually the entire Canadian passenger list collection from 1865 to 1935, which includes ports in Halifax, St. John, Vancouver, Victoria and North Sydney, is digitized and indexed.

In addition to the Canadian passenger list collection, later this year Ancestry.ca and LAC will make available border crossings records from the United States to Canada that took place between 1908 and 1935.

These additions add to Ancestry.ca's current online Canadian Border Crossing Collection, which include more than 4 million names of individuals who crossed the Canadian-U.S. border between 1895 and 1956.

For more Canadian Passenger List Resources, visit Olive Tree Genealogyand Ships Lists Online

FREE Access to Ancestry.com's Immigration Collection!

To celebrate the 100 anniversary of 1907 - the largest year of immigration through Ellis Island - Ancestry is giving all researchers FREE ACCESS to their Immigration Collection until April 30, 2007

Discover your ancestors in the largest collection of passenger lists available online. Search more than 100 million names from more than 100 U.S. ports.

See details and link to Ancestry's FREE Immigration Records Collection (Free Until April 30, 2007) Includes arrivals in New York (Castle Garden, Ellis Island), Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and more