If you have ancestors who left England for shore far away then The Ship’s List website will be worth checking out. It’s been online since 1999 and keeps growing. It has Passengers Lists for boats going to USA, Canada, Australia & South Africa.
Archive for the ‘Immigration & Emigration’ Category
The Ships List
September 18th, 2011 
Linda Elliott 
Posted in Immigration & Emigration, Take It Further 
Tags: Family History, Genealogy, Passenger Lists, Shipping, Ships List 
No Comments »Free Access to Ancestry Immigration Records
August 30th, 2011 Linda Elliott 
From now until 5th September Ancestry is offering free access to all it’s immigration records. This includes passenger lists, immigration records & alien arrivals.
So if you aren’t a subscriber to Ancestry.com or only have a co.uk subs then this is the ideal time to see if any of your ancestors left home and head overseas.
Canadian Census Online
July 12th, 2010 Linda Elliott
Got this release from the FFHS about free access to the Canadian Census online…….
Hope this helps those with ancestors who emigrated to Canada.
The Canadian census indices are very comprehensive and they are all free to access (except 1861 and 1871 – see below notes). The earlier census years are very important for research on UK people who migrated to Canada before 1911.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/) has the images on-line for the following:
1851/52 for Canada East (now Quebec)
1851/52 for Canada West (now Ontario)
1881 for all of Canada
1891 for all of Canada
1901 for all of Canada
1906 for the Northwest Provinces – Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta
1911 for all of Canada
Only the censuses of 1881 and 1891 are name searchable. 1881 uses the sometimes difficult Utah index: inspires creativity. The Catalogue of Census Returns on microfilm 1666-1901 digitized on the LAC site gives a list of what years are available in any given census locality.
The 1861 and 1871 Canadian censuses are particularly valuable for gaining an insight into how one’s ancestors lived. These census forms asked many questions other than the basic ones. Especially in rural areas, which comprised much of early Canada, one may learn what crops were harvested, how much land was under what cultivation, what farm animals the family owned (and even slaughtered), what farm equipment they owned, what kind of houses they lived in and much more. 1871 had up to 9 schedules. Needless to say not all questions were pertinent to each family.
1901, 1906 and 1911 can only be searched by the geographic area not the name. However, as stated in the previous email, the website Automated Genealogy has had a large number of volunteers index these records by name. Their site links to the images on Library and Archives Canada.
America’s First Immigration Centre
June 28th, 2010 Linda Elliott
Can’t remember if I have written about this website before, but here goes. Almost everyone with English ancestor are going to find that someone disappears never to be found again in the British Archives. They may well have been tempted by the adventure of emigrating to America. This website offers background history and a huge database of folk who ventured abroad between 1820 – 1892. Castle Garden was established before the better known Ellis Island.
The website states….CastleGarden.org is an educational project of The Battery Conservancy. This free site offers access to an extraordinary database of information on 11 million immigrants from 1820 through 1892, the year Ellis Island opened. Over 100 million Americans can trace their ancestors to this early immigration period.
Castle Garden, today known as Castle Clinton National Monument, is the major landmark within The Battery, the 25 acre waterfront park at the tip of Manhattan. From 1855 to 1890, the Castle was America’s first official immigration center, a pioneering collaboration of New York State and New York.
Polish Refugee Subsistence & Genealogy Records
November 8th, 2009 Linda Elliott
The Society of Genealogists have an increasing number of online datasets available to their members. This one is of particular interest to those with Polish ancestry.
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Polish Refugee Subsistence and Genealogical Data
Entries from a card index compiled by Antoni and Stella Szachnowski, members of the Catholic Family History Society and donated to the Society of Genealogists in November 1999. The original slips, now divided into two indexes, relate to the names of Poles ‘primarily before 1939” found in a number of sources including, amongst others no doubt, the following:
- Polish Subsistence: Parliamentary Papers “Russia, Poland & Serbia miscellaneous papers 1803-1854” (comprising returns of Polish refugees receiving subsistence or any assistance from the Grant voted by Parliament from 1838-1841.)
- Polish Genealogy: entries from the registers of the Chapel of the Virgin Mary of Czestochowa, Diocese of Westminster; London St Peter Apostulate – baptisms; Electoral rolls (St Pancras 1891, Lambeth 1891, St Marylebone 1892, Westminster Borough 1908); 1841 Census Portsea Hants, Polish Refugee Hospital; soldiers from the Polish Army; Naturalisations.
Further correspondence and papers assembled by Mr and Mrs Szachnowski but not indexed in the above can be found in two archives boxes called the Polish Collection held amongst the Society’s Special Collections.
Ship’s Log Books to go online
October 10th, 2009 Linda Elliott
The National Archives have announced…..
A new partnership between JISC, the University of Sunderland, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the British Atmospheric Data Centre has enabled the use of historical naval logbooks in ground-breaking research on climate change. The logbooks include the famous voyages of Charles Darwin’s ship, the Beagle, Captain Cook’s HMS Discovery and William Parry’s polar expedition in HMS Hecla.
A fully searchable version of the logbooks, which also include unique accounts of life on board ship and the lands encountered on the adventurers’ voyages, will be available on The National Archives’ website in 2010.
AUSNZ SHIPPING LISTS
June 22nd, 2009 Linda Elliott This site is designed to help family historians locate passenger lists for migrant ships to Australia/New Zealand and hence the entries relating to their studies. Be aware that you do need to know which ship your people came to NZ on before you can use this website.
http://www.list.jaunay.com/ausnzpassengers/
Early Settlers of Napier
June 22nd, 2009 Linda Elliott 
FIRST FLEET CONVICTS, CREW & GUARDS
June 21st, 2009 Linda Elliott Listing of convicts, crew & guards aboard the First Fleet ships.
http://www.jag10.freeserve.co.uk/1788.htm
FIRST FLEET CONVICTS
June 21st, 2009 Linda Elliott
Biographical database of the 780 First Fleet Convicts. Entries may have quite detailed reports on individual convicts.
http://firstfleet.uow.edu.au/index.html
