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Re: [TSL] Questions on passenger lists
Gery & Sue <swig@ns.sympatico.ca> on 12/30/1997


Hi Patty,

At 08:48 AM 12/30/97 -0500, Patty Pickett wrote:
>My library finally got one index plus two rolls of microfilm for me from agll
>for Quebec. They are rolls C-4521 and C5422 and cover mid 1866 to mid
>1868. This is my first look at Canadian records.

These lists can be both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. We have
C-4522 on ILL at present too. Gery's GGGGParents were on the Claus Heftye,
from Bergen. Fortunately it's a great list.

>So these lists came as a bit of a surprise to me. This is what I found.
>
>I discovered that when a ship sailed from one port of embarkation that
>there was the list attached to that port and if they stopped elsewhere
>along the way a separate list was added. This list was in a totally
>different handwriting and style as well. Passengers on the ships
>were broken down ethnically as well or so it seemed. For instance, on
>one ship the English passengers were usually listed first, then the
>Scotch, then Irish, the "other". The original list from say Liverpool would
>list all these people in that order, then there was another list added to it
>and usually it was a German list. These lists were not on real "list"
>paper- they looked like sheets of white paper with no lines or column
>headings. They were very faint and extremely hard to read.

Are you sure that is what you were seeing? There are a LOT of Norwegian
lists on that reel, and they usually didn't use a manifest sheet, but
rather a sheet of plain paper, which could contain a little (such as just
"head of household") or a lot, with full families listed with ages and
notes of births or deaths included. Sometimes it's very difficult to make
out the name of the ship on these lists, but usually they have a number
written on them, with what looks like a grease pencil. This number
indicates what the List # was for that ship. The immigration agents
numbered the ships arrivals for the entire year. Number 10 would be the
10th arrival for 1867 eg.

>Often I would see other things like entire families being crossed off
>the list with the note "not at clearance". There would be a page called
>the town agents and others list. Who were they?
>the standard time for these trips was listed as 32 days. I had a hard time
>believing all ships arrived that regularly. Most of them said they did.

I would think that the families who were crossed off, may have booked, but
didn't sail on that ship. The "town agents and others list" I haven't
seen!!! Did you make a note of which ship it pertained to, I'd be
interested to see that myself. The Norwegian and German direct sailings in
1867 were taking anywhere from 5 to even 8 weeks. The larger ships from eg
Liverpool, averaged only about 12 days.

<snip>
>What was a prepaid passage? That was listed as well.

I would imagine this refers to the emigration "packages" which the shipping
lines and agents offered. These were offered at a very handsome saving.
These could include (maybe travel to a departure port), passage on a small
steamer to Hull (from Norway eg), train travel to Liverpool, passage on the
big transatlantic ship to Quebec, and then inward travel by train and/or
lake steamer to the immigrants destination. Pretty 'heady stuff' for
1867!! <G>

>I am looking for a specific Irish family said to have arrived in 1867
>according to the Vermont census information in 1900. I did find a lot of
>Irish names, but I also found far more Swedes than I ever thought
>possible. My husbands family came from Sweden and I had an
>erroneous notion that most of them came at the turn of the century.

There were thousands and thousands of Scandinavians who took this route,
via Canada to usually the US. I'm not sure about the Swedes, but the
Norwegian migration was said to have started with the Sloop Restaurasjonen
from Stavanger to New York in 1825. During the 1830's and 1840's, this
really started picking up. In the 1850's Quebec was being used, so by 1867
it was in full swing.

(my notes in [] - sue)
>There were many on the lists that I saw. Ports of departure were all
>Liverpool, Glasgow, London, Dublin, Kragenor (?) [KRAGERO Norway] Hamburg
and >Bremen, Abderdeen, one looks like Ahrishana (?) [not familiar with
this one], >Bergen, Christiana (?), [the former name of OSLO] Strauvauger
(?) [STAVANGER >Norway] Skien, [Norway] Londonderry or Derry, Dramen
[DRAMMEN Norway] and one >that looked like Drontheins. [Drontheim was the
German for TRONDHEIM Norway]
<snip>
>Is this typical of passenger lists (broken down by nationality, ....

It is typical of the ones I've seen. The British lists broken down by
English, Scots, Irish and Foreign (I've seen some very English looking
names in the foreign column though ??). The Norwegian and German lists
broken down by "Nation/Country of birth" which is usually the _region_ of
origin.

In your next post, you said this
<<If nothing else I am going to try to put together the 1867 and 1868 list
of ships arriving, port of embarkation, date, port they landed in and
date and name of ship as well of course. Hopefully!>>

That's a LOT of work!! Gery and I have this in a database, nearly 40,000
Canadian arrivals, with the information you mentioned, plus shipping line
(if noted) special passengers (if noted) remarks and list # (if noted). Of
course we have the Microfilm reel number for each sailing also.

I'm so glad you are getting so much pleasure from these lists. I do, and I
personally have no family on them (just Gery <G>), all mine are still
eluding me, on the other side of the World!

Good luck in your search for your Irish family, you may get lucky and find
your Swedish family too :)

Sue
--





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Sue & Gery Swiggum
co-owners TheShipsList©
mailto:swig@ns.sympatico.ca
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