Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show aside to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her that one of those heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are al...
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Get to Know bac-lac: Immigration Records (Part II)

In my previous post I discussed two strategies that can be used to find a person in Canadian Immigration records and showed an example on how to apply them to find a Form 30A record. In this post I will explain how to find someone in the more complicated Passenger Lists, 1865-1922.  

This collection is not organized by surname but rather by shipping information. Basic searches can be conducted using with any/all of the following parameters:

  • Name of ship
  • Year of arrival
  • Port of arrival
  • Shipping line
  • Port of departure
If you desire to perform an advanced search you can add any/all of the following parameters to the basic search:
  • Date of departure
  • Date of arrival
The search results are displayed in a table which can be sorted using any of the headers:
  • Item number
  • Ship name
  • Port of arrival
  • Date of arrival
Note: In some cases there are two ports of arrival listed but only one date of arrival. This does not mean that the ship arrived in both ports on the same day, but rather that that was the date of arrival in the first port.  

Each result listed in the table will lead you to the accompanying microfilm of the ship manifest and passenger list. The passenger list is organized by class, which is indicated on the top right hand corner of the passenger lists. More often than not the passengers are not organized by surname. The only organization within each record is that people who are travelling together are listed together. 

Lets look at an example of how to apply the strategies discussed in Part I to find someone in this collection. 


STEP 1: Identify the shipping information from the hint
On the Ancestry app I was able to view the transcribed details for the UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1880-1960. I found the following shipping information: The Daniels' family set sail from Liverpool on July 4 1907. 

STEP 2: Enter as much of the shipping information as you can find into the basic search form
On the basic search form I entered the port of departure and departure date (found in advanced search options)

STEP 3: Scroll through the results and identify which one is the most likely match

STEP 4: If you know the class that your ancestor was travelling in, you can skip forward using the page number at the top of the microfilm viewer 

STEP 5: If possible try and match the marking on the hint image with that of the microfilm. Doing so saves time as each page needs to be opened in full screen to be readable. 

STEP 6: Manually read through the pages until you find the person you are looking for

STEP 7: Use a screenshot or snipping tool to save any desired pages

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