Heavy seas accompany a search of ship lists

Seeking your original immigrant's name on a passenger ship list can be as pleasureable an experience as sticking bamboo shoots under your fingernails.

Sure, there's the Ellis Island site (www.ellisislandrecord.com), a one-stop venue for rooters whose ancestors arrived between 1892 and 1924. For the rest of us, it's a crapshoot. No central repository exists for passenger ship records.

On that rare occasion when you find a ship's manifest, proving that the John Smith on that list is your John Smith is no small feat. Unless your ancestors had very unusual names or you know precisely when and where they arrived, it takes a quantum leap of faith to believe that you've pinpointed your target.

One primary reason for trolling through passenger lists is to ascertain your immigrant's country of origin and the location of the ancestral home.

But finding your kin on a ship's list may be a hollow victory. Immigrants may be referred to as British citizens merely because they hailed from a country in the United Kingdom. Think Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Likewise, the port at which the immigrant boarded the ship may have no bearing on where he lived. It may simply have been the closest port. Overall, the chance that ship records will shed much light on your immigrant's country of origin or the precise location of his ancestral home is slim.

Intrepid souls determined to press on with this pursuit should bone up on what records are available before launching an all-out search. Go to the National Archives and Records Administration Web site at www.archives.gov/research_room/genealogy or head for the library.

Basically, the national archives puts ship documents into three periods: pre-1820, 1820-82 and 1882-1959.

Before 1820, ship captains filed reports with local authorities on passengers who had embarked in a foreign port and disembarked at a United States port. No central repository exists for these records.

The federal government did not require ship captains to provide passenger lists until Jan. 1, 1820. Thus, the national archives' pre-1820 ship lists are limited to New Orleans between 1813-19 and Philadelphia between 1800-19.

Beginning in 1920, captains were mandated to report arrival information to customs officers at the port of entry. The national archives has passenger indexes for Baltimore (1820-1952), Boston (1848-91 and 1902-20), New Orleans (1853-1952), New York (1820-46 and 1897-1948), Philadelphia (1800-1948) and several minor ports. You can request copies of a passenger's file with Form 81. Obtain forms by e-mailing inquire@nara.gov. You'll pay $17.25 each.

On Aug. 3, 1882, Congress passed the first federal law regulating immigration; it compelled captains to keep separate lists for immigrants. Standardized forms that included each immigrant's marital status, last place of residence, destination city, names of relatives he planned to meet in this country and previous visits to the United States appeared about a decade later. Additional questions, such as an immigrant's physical description, were added in 1906 and 1907.

Immigrants who crossed the border from Canada during the mid to late 19th century usually did not have their arrival recorded. Because it was faster and less of a hassle, many immigrants chose this entry route. This practice stopped in 1894 when the U.S. Immigration Bureau reached an agreement with Canadian authorities to treat all immigrants as though they were landing at a U.S. port. Accessing these records is complicated.

Mormon Family History Centers, public libraries, historical societies and museums have compiled indexes and passenger ship lists. Some have compiled lists for specific ethnic groups. The University of South Florida Library owns microfilm copies of passenger arrival lists for Florida and other selected Southern ports from the 1890s through the 1920s, including immigrants who came here from Spain by way of Cuba. Online sources include www.cyndislist.com and http://olivetreegenealogy.com.

Donna Murray Allen welcomes your questions about genealogy and will respond to those of general interest in future columns. Sorry, she can't take phone calls, but you can write to her c/o Floridian, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail her at rootscolumn@yahoo.com.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.