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Re: [TSL] The Aguste Victoria from Hamburg to NY 7/18/1898
4listsub@comcast.net on 09/06/2004
A question about the steamship Auguste Victoria’s August 5, 1898, arrival at New York raises several issues.  Among them are the subject of manifest pages possibly missing from the Ellis Island Database (EIDB)--or perhaps missing from the original microfilmed records (and thus unavailable for addition to the EIDB).

First, Mitch asked the question:
> According to the Hamburg web site my gggrandfather, Leib Salowicz, was
> on the Aguste Victoria which left Hamburg  July 28th 1898.  The Ellis
> Island web site doesn't seem to have any listing for him.  When I
> checked the microfilm of the arrivals in NYC (the ship arrived August
> 5th) I couldn't find his name either.  It seemed a bit unusual to me
> that there were only 5 pages of passenger manifests including a total of
> only about 140 passengers.  Is this possible?  What happened to Leib
> Salowicz?  Or should I just assume that pages were lost?

Here we might add another question:  What does “the Hamburg web site” actually document?  Does the Hamburg data document the passengers who actually departed on a specific ship on a specific day, OR does it show the ship for which the passenger was booked (scheduled)?  I ask the question because I do not pretend to know about the Hamburg records.  Could it be the passenger was put on a different ship to New York, or a different ship to some other port?  But I digress.

David responded to Mitch:
> Maybe lost.  If you look at frame 401 which lists the vessel arrivals in
> that batch, many of them seem to have too few pages.  But whether manifest
> pages are missing or were just not microfilmed???

David is right.  The table of contents for Volume 57 of the New York passenger lists 19 ships arrived August 1 to 10, 1898.  All the manifest pages for all these ships in volume 57 total 146 manifest pages.  If each list contained 30 individual records (the maximum allowed by law), they would account for a total of 4,380 passengers.  The ships average 7.6 pages each, and 230 passenger each.  In this light, the Auguste Victoria’s 7 pages and 210 possible passengers looks unremarkable.

I reviewed the New York Times shipping news for August and September 1898, and saw nothing to indicate anything strange regarding this voyage of the Auguste Victoria.  A report of immigration statistics for 1898-1899 in the Times (“Immigration for the Year," July 13, 1899, p. 4) indicates that the arrivals on the volume 57 ships, covering 10 days at New York in August 1898, accounted for 26 percent of all immigrants arriving at all US ports in August 1898 (total 16,779).  Again, there is nothing to suggest any missing pages.

Does the Hamburg web site indicate the total number of passengers departing on the Auguste Victoria on July 28, 1898?

David continued:
> I seem to remember that the surviving original manifests have now been
> handed over to a library (New York Public Library??) and are intended to be
> made available at least for checking for missing microfilm.  Perhaps someone
> can refresh my memory on that?

Yes and no.  The original (paper) New York passenger lists dated 1820 to at least 1897 moved several times.  First, in the late 1930’s they moved from the Customs House in New York to the National Archives (NARA) building in Washington, DC, where they became part of Record Group 36.  There, NARA microfilmed them and so had 2 copies--one in paper form, one on microfilm.

In the late 1970’s, for a variety of reasons, the original paper lists transferred to a research arm of Temple University in Philadelphia, which in turn housed the records at the Balch Institute in that city.  There, migration researchers used the lists over the years to create a database, and published some of that data for genealogists in book series like Germans to America, Italians to America, etc.  Meanwhile, NARA researchers used the microfilm copies.

In recent years, the Balch Institute merged with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the immigration researchers lost their space in the Balch building.  At that point (ca. 2003?), the records moved back to NARA.  But instead of moving back to Washington, DC, they moved back to NARA in New York, not far from where they started out in the 1930’s.  The only difference is that in the 1930’s only the New York lists departed for Washington, and now the lists for all US ports moved to NARA on Varick Street in New York City.

I do not believe these lists are open for research.  They are VERY fragile.  But NARA staff and volunteers are doing an inventory and checking it against available sources like the EIDB (1892-1897), Morton Allan Directory (1890-1897), etc.  They too are interested in accounting for any list or pages missing or misidentified by any other source.  You will have to contact NARA in New York to find out if they will respond to any reference requests.  Furthermore, it doesn't appear the records cover 1898.

Finally, Sue asked:
> To add to David's suggestion . . << But whether manifest pages are missing
> or were just not microfilmed??? . . >>  maybe they simply weren't scanned
> for the Ellis Island database.  However, before you go rushing to read the
> hard copy of the microfilm, even if they were not scanned for the EIDB,
> wouldn't the passengers have been indexed, regardless?

Excellent suggestion, Sue!  In the time it took me to write all this, someone could have checked the Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, NY, June 16, 1897--June 30, 1902. T519. 115 rolls. 16mm.

MS :-)


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Re: [TSL] The Aguste Victoria from Hamburg to NY 7/18/1898 09/06/2004: [Posted by 4listsub@comcast.net]

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