Passenger Lists Records: Elevenses with Lisa Episode 34
Video & Show Notes Original air date: 11/19/20
If you’ve ever struggled to find a passenger list or figure out what it’s telling you about your family history, you’re in the right place. In this episode I’ll show you where to look, and how to interpret what you find. Click to watch the video and follow along with the notes below:
A Question About Passenger Lists
Genealogy Gems Premium Member and Elevenses with Lisa viewer Deborah Huber wrote in about some challenges she was having with passenger lists.
“Hi Lisa, I have a few questions about the passenger records I have found for my mother and grandparents. They are all from Ancestry.com.” Let’s go through Deborah’s questions step-by-step.
Deborah is looking for the Felberg Family:
Otto age 33 (Grandfather) b. 1894
Marta age 23 (Grandmother) b. 1904
Ruth age 3 (Mother) b. 1924
They Sailed March 25, 1927 from Hamburg Germany to New York
“My mother was born in Heinrichshoff on “Stork Day,” a day celebrating the return of the storks in the spring and welcoming them to their nests on top of the chimneys.”
Passenger List records to look for:
German Passenger list (the outbound record)
New York Passenger lists (the incoming record)
Searching for the New York Passenger List
How to search for passenger lists at Ancestry: Search > Immigration & Travel > Search by name and birthdate. If you don’t see both expected passenger lists (ex. Hamburg and New York) check the Card Catalog. Example search: Hamburg passenger or Germany passenger. From the results page you might have the opportunity to click through and see a photo of the ship. You may also find a link to additional passenger lists (in this case, the Hamburg Passenger List).
Results page for Otto Felberg
Question: “Also, my mother always said that they didn’t go through Ellis Island but did land in NY City. I think Castle Gardens was already closed in 1927 so I’m trying to figure out where they did land.” Answer: The record collection title alerts us to what is included in the passenger list collection: New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957
A quick Google search will tell us the dates that Castle Garden was in operation: “From August 3, 1855 to April 18, 1890, Castle Garden was America’s first official immigration center, a pioneering collaboration of New York State and New York City.”
Tip: Search Multiple Sources for Passenger Lists You may find the quality of the digitized image varies from one genealogy website to the next.
Top Free Resources for searching for Ellis Island passenger lists:
Tip:Finding Passengers When Names are Hard to Read When names are difficult to read, focus on other information that is easier to spot such as the person’s age. In the Felberg family’s case, Ruth was 3 years old. Looking for a “3” in the age column proved much easier than reading the names.
Identifying the Location Named in a Passenger List
Question: On the screenshot from the Hamburg list is says the destination was “Greenlake”. Is that a port? All I could find on the internet about Greenlake is that it is a NY state park. Answer: The “Greenlake” mentioned in the indexed passenger list record refers to the final destination, not the port of arrival. Carefully review both original passenger list records.
Tip: Don’t Miss Page 2 Like many genealogical records, passenger lists records may be more than one page. If the index refers to something that you do not see when you click through to the original record, it is a strong indication that there is another page. Always look at the pages before and after any digitized record. In this case, we find Greenlake, WI on page 2!
1820 – 1907: Ship manifests are 1 page in length
After 1907: Manifests are 2 pages with additional information provided.
Source: The Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.
Now that we know that Greenlake is Greenlake, Wisconsin, we can run a quick Google search to find the correct name and county: Green Lake, Wisconsin. Then continue your googling to find more historical information such as old maps and postcards. Click “Images” on the results page to quickly review the results.
Here are a few of the resources we found for Green Lake, WI:
There is a wealth of information on the Felberg’s passenger list, starting with the name of Otto’s father and the town where he lived:
Nearest relative listed on a passenger list
How to decipher an Ellis Island passenger list form.
Hamburg Passenger Lists
Question: “I can’t read the actual document which is the Hamburg Passenger List.” Answer: The Hamburg passenger list can be found in the Card Catalog. Card Catalog > Search Title (Hamburg Passenger Lists)
2 results: the passenger lists and the index.
We discovered that not only was the passenger list extremely difficult to read due to the ink copying over the page, but also the link did not go to the correct page. This is where the Index, found through the Card Catalog, because indispensable.
Band 161 (1927 F-J) (The year of their arrival and “F” for Felberg)
F (for Felberg)
Search the Index to locate the page number for the passenger’s record. Then go back to the original record and find the handwritten page number in the upper corner.
Tip: Quickly Navigate the Ancestry Record
Simply press the appropriate key on your computer keyboard to quickly navigate the pages.
“N” = Next page
“P” = Previous page
Visit Elevenses with LisaEpisode 17 for more Ancestry search tips and tricks.
We found the Felberg family on page 117, exactly where the index said they would be. It’s a good idea to search all the passengers for others with the same last name. In this case, Otto’s brother Rudolph Felberg was also on the ship. This aligned with the family lore that Rudolph may have sponsored the family’s move.
Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 153 Jackie Schalk, Director of the American Family Immigration History Center at The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc discusses clues you may find in US passenger lists.
Betty has at least 130 good reasons to use Google Books for genealogy! She used this powerful Google tool to find her ancestor’s name in a book–which led to a treasure trove of his original letters in an archive. Here’s what happened–and how to try this with your own family history research.
You’ve heard me say that Google Books is the tool I turn to every day. Now, you may be thinking, “But my ancestors wouldn’t be in history books!” Resist the temptation to make assumptions about sources, and about your ancestors. With over 25 million books, Google Books is more likely to have something pertinent to your genealogy research than you think. And as I often tell my audiences, those books can include source citations, providing a trail to even more treasures.
Why to Use Google Books for Genealogy: Success Story!
At the National Genealogical Society conference this past spring, Betty attended my class and then stopped by the Genealogy Gems booth to share her story. I recorded it, and here’s a transcription:
Betty: I was stuck on my Duncan Mackenzie ancestor, so I put his name in Google Books, because when you’re stuck, that’s what you do!
Lisa: Yes, I do!
Betty: So, up popped this history of Mississippi, it was sort of a specific history, and it said Duncan Mackenzie had written a letter to his brother-in-law in North Carolina from Covington County, Mississippi. And of course I already had my tax records and my census records that placed him in Covington County. This was in the 1840s. I thought, this just couldn’t be him! Why would any of my relatives be in a book? [Sound familiar?]
So, finally, weeks later, it occurred to me to go back and look at the footnotes in the book, and I found that the letters could be found in the Duncan McLarin papers at Duke University. So, I didn’t even think to even borrow the microfilm. I just told my husband, “next time you go East for work, we need to go by Duke University.” So I set up a time, and I went, and it WAS my great-great-grandfather who wrote those letters! I have now transcribed 130 letters from that collection. They let me scan them all, and I’ve been back again to scan the rest of the legal papers.
Lisa: So, an online search into Google Books not only help you find something online, but it led you to the offline gems!
Betty: And it just changed my life! Because I spend all my time on these letters. It’s distracted me from other lines! [LOL! I get that!]
How to Use Google Books for Genealogy
Are you ready to put Google Books to work in your own research and discover some genealogy gems of your own? Here, I re-create Betty’s search for you, so you can see how to get started:
1. Go to Google Books (books.google.com). Enter search terms that would pertain to your ancestor, like a name and a place.
2. Browse the search results. The first three that show up here all look promising. Click on the first one.
3. Review the text that comes up in the text screen. As you can see here, Duncan McKenzie of Covington County is mentioned–and the source note at the bottom of the page tells you that the original letter cited in the book is at Duke University.
Learn More about Using Google Books for Genealogy
Learn more by watching my free Google Books video series at the Genealogy Gems YouTube Channel. Click the video below to watch the first one. (And be sure to subscribe while you’re there, because there are more videos to come!)
Then, watch the video below for a quick preview of my full one hour video class (and downloadable handout) called Google Books: The Tool You Need Every Day!, available to all Genealogy Gems Premium Members.
I’m pleased to return this year to speak at the 45th Annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. This popular conference, hosted by The Southern California Genealogical Society, runs June 6 to 8, 2014 in Burbank, California, USA.
The theme of the 2014 Jamboree is Golden Memories: Discovering Your Family History. It promises to pack tons of fun into a long weekend, as it always does. According to the press release, “Our heritage focus will be on European ancestors. Class sessions are scheduled for German, Irish, English/UK, Scotland, Eastern Europe, Italian, Mennonite, Swedish, and Russian, as well as African American and Jewish classes. Jamboree will be the culmination of a year-long celebration of the Society’s 50th Anniversary, and special activities will commemorate the Decade of the 60s. Dust off your tie dye tees and pillbox hats and take part in our Sunday noon ‘fashion show.’ Winner by popular vote will receive a free registration to the 2015 Jamboree.”
My classes on Friday and Saturday include:
“Who Needs Google Reader? Flip Out Over Genealogy Content with Flipboard!” Learn how to use the free Flipboard app to turn your favorite genealogy web content into your own free customized digital magazine. You will flip over how fun and easy they are to create and share. Perfect for genealogists and societies!
“Ultimate Google Search Strategies for Genealogists.” Learn Google search techniques, tricks and tips to achieve better genealogical search results, and then elevate your search to a strategic level. Finally, see how all of this applies across the spectrum of free Google Tools.
“How to Create an Exciting Interactive Family History Tour with Google Earth.” Learn to tell your ancestor’s story in a captivating multi-media way in Google Earth. Incorporate images, videos, genealogical documents, and historic maps and bring it all together in a virtual family history tour for sharing and research analysis.
Learn how to use Google Chrome to identify old photos for genealogy and family history with this quick and easy-to-follow YouTube video!
How to Use Google Chrome to Identify Old Photos for Genealogy and Family History
Take 4 & 1/2 minutes to watch this video from our Genealogy Gems YouTube Channel. Your family history will be glad you did!
Like I said, there is more than one web-browser out there. Maybe you are a fan of Firefox or Internet Explorer, but I want you to head on over to Google Chrome to see this really slick feature.
Why Google Chrome Image Search Works
Google Chrome can do a lot of amazing tech things. By learning how to use Google Images, you may be able to finally identify some of those old pictures you have stuffed around the house! This technique works especially well for identifying locations, maps, and high profile buildings. Why does this work? Google has a stellar process for surfing the web (they call it “crawling”) and indexing everything it finds. This effort builds an incredible wealth of information, including information on all of the photos and images it comes across. Google Chrome, Google’s web-browser, can use this data to quickly match your image to other images Google has crawled on the web. Not only can it find the image, but it can bring along with it any other information (such as details about the image) that is attached to the image. And that can all mean big answers for you!
Take It Further: Identify Original Locations of Images and Photos
In my video, I share with you how I used Google Chrome to identify an old family postcard. In this blog post today, I want to share another tip for using Google Chrome to identify old photos. It never fails.
If you’re like me, you get pretty excited as you make family history discoveries. You might find yourself saving documents and pictures to your computer without accurately sourcing from whence they came. Six months later you find yourself wondering, “Where in the world did that image come from?”
Google Chrome can help. Just use the step-by-step instructions found in the video to upload the image to Google Images, and click the Search by Image button. Voila! Google finds the match and you uncover the website where the image came from! This saves valuable time (and I think we can all use more of that) and provides the information you need to properly cite your image source.
Sharing is Caring
Thanks for watching and reading, friends. Did you share this tech-tip video with your genie buddies? I hope you did. For more tech-tips and savvy tricks, be sure to subscribe to our Genealogy Gems YouTube Channel.
does. According to the press release, “Our heritage focus will be on European ancestors. Class sessions are scheduled for German, Irish, English/UK, Scotland, Eastern Europe, Italian, Mennonite, Swedish, and Russian, as well as African American and Jewish classes. Jamboree will be the culmination of a year-long celebration of the Society’s 50th Anniversary, and special activities will commemorate the Decade of the 60s. Dust off your tie dye tees and pillbox hats and take part in our Sunday noon ‘fashion show.’ Winner by popular vote will receive a free registration to the 2015 Jamboree.”
