Latest News

Finding Alexander Fleming	Alex Daley, Findmypast Editor
Sir Alexander Fleming, the nobel-prize winning scientist who discovered the antibacterial effects of penicillin, travelled extensively during his lifetime and crossed the Atlantic several times, with the journeys logged on the Passenger Lists. Fleming was born in East Ayrshire, Scotland in 1881. This event, along with many other Scottish records can be found on our sister-site, [...]
Mon, 16 Mar 2009	Read more

Jack Kid Berg ? The Whitechapel Windmill	Alex Daley, Findmypast Editor
Judah Bergman, otherwise known as ‘Jack Kid Berg’, to this day is considered one of the finest boxers Great Britain has produced. Berg was born to a poor Jewish family in Whitechapel, East London, on 28 June 1909. For a young man such as Berg, in the 1920s, professional boxing was one of the few viable [...]
Tue, 23 Dec 2008	Read more

The 1908 London Olympics	Alex Daley, Findmypast Editor
With Beijing 2008 finished and the countdown to London 2012 underway, we look back at the first time London hosted an Olympic Games, in 1908. The White City Stadium (originally The Great Stadium) was built for the event. It housed a running track, a swimming and diving pool, plus platforms for wrestling and gymnastics. In this, the [...]
Mon, 08 Sep 2008	Read more

Cary Grant	Alex Daley, Findmypast Editor
The Hollywood star familiar to millions as Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach, in Bristol in 1904. He appears three times in our exclusive Passenger Lists, bound in each instance for New York. We first find Grant in 1920, aged 16, aboard the Olympic. In his company are eight other actors; collectively they comprised the [...]
Thu, 31 Jul 2008	Read more

Raymond Chandler	Alex Daley, Findmypast Editor
Among the most influential of crime fiction writers is Raymond Chandler. In just seven novels he established his protagonist Philip Marlowe as American fiction’s quintessential private detective. He was also behind some of the finest screenwriting Hollywood has seen. Screen adaptations like Double Indemnity bear testament to his innate ability to write for cinema. Since the [...]
Wed, 25 Jun 2008	Read more

Oswald Mosley	Alex Daley, Findmypast Editor
Oswald Mosley must rank among the most controversial figures in 20th century British politics. His radical views forced him out of the Labour party in 1930 and soon after he formed his own political party, the New Party, whose policies mirrored his own extremist beliefs. Heavily influenced by Mussolini’s National Fascist Party in Italy, in 1932, [...]
Wed, 07 May 2008	Read more

Ten Pound Poms	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
The phrase ‘Ten Pound Poms’ derived from the Britons who emigrated to Australia following World War Two on the Australian government’s assisted passage scheme. The purpose of this scheme was to enlarge Australia’s population whilst supplying workers for the country’s growing economy and industry. Britons were offered a way out of the rationing and deprivation of post-war [...]
Mon, 31 Mar 2008	Read more

Explorers and Deception (Island)	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Whilst looking at the last decade of the Passenger Lists we came across an expedition to an exotic sounding location: Deception Island. Located in the South Shetland Islands the Island was historically used by seal hunters and whaling companies. In more recent times it was the focus of scientific research and, in 1955/56, was the subject [...]
Thu, 27 Mar 2008	Read more

Passenger Lists statistics and graphs	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Now that the Passenger Lists are a complete set we’ve been looking at trends and patterns in the long-distance movement of people by ship from the UK. The overall number of passengers travelling for each 5-year period from 1890-1960 can be viewed below. Please note that the last bar is actually a six- rather than a [...]
Tue, 25 Mar 2008	Read more

Passenger Lists now complete with launch of the final decade	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Search for ancestors from 1890-1960 The last decade of the Passenger Lists has now been added, allowing you to search from 1890 all the way up to 1960, for ancestors leaving the UK. There are now more than 24 million passengers, across 164,000 exclusive passenger lists. The 1950s – Elvis, Egypt and Emigration The 1950s [...]
Tue, 18 Mar 2008	Read more

Sailing suffragettes	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
March is Women’s History Month and to celebrate we have found some pioneering women in our Passenger Lists. It was 90 years ago, with the Representation of the People Act 1918, that women over the age of 30 were enfranchised. Ten years after, in 1928, this was extended allowing representation on equal terms with men. One [...]
Thu, 28 Feb 2008	Read more

Steamboat Walt	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
There are many famous names and figures amongst the Passenger Lists, from every conceivable walk of life. One man, who appears twice in the new 1940s Passenger Lists, was a giant of the film industry, whose surname is synonymous with both a hugely lucrative entertainment empire and a cartoon mouse. Walter Elias Disney is listed [...]
Mon, 18 Feb 2008	Read more

Arandora Star	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
On 2 July 1940 the Arandora Star was hit by a German torpedo and sunk off the coast of Donegal, Ireland. The ship was transporting 1,500 German and Italian men to interment camps in Canada. Over 800 people died in the sinking, a figure exacerbated by inadequate lifeboat provision. The Arandora Star was built in 1927 [...]
Wed, 13 Feb 2008	Read more

Jewish refugees	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
As the Nazi Party’s anti-Semitic agenda became clearer and more brutal, thousands of Jews fled Germany and its neighbouring countries. Following Kristallnacht in November 1938, the need to emigrate in order to avoid persecution became more urgent. The 1940s Passenger Lists contain many Jewish individuals fleeing Europe for America and Australia. One example is a voyage [...]
Mon, 11 Feb 2008	Read more

London Olympics 1948	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Image copyright IOC / Olympic Museum Collections The events of World War Two meant that the 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled. London was awarded the 1948 Games but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Financially, Britain had been crippled by the conflict and rationing was still enforced, with bread rationing ending only on the day [...]
Wed, 06 Feb 2008	Read more

War Brides	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Thousands of British women found love during the Second World War. American and Canadian troops stationed in Britain during the War gained a reputation as being ‘overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here’. British women married these servicemen in huge numbers, with approximately 100,000 wedding Americans and a further 45,000 marrying Canadians. Once the war was over [...]
Fri, 01 Feb 2008	Read more

New decade added to the Passenger Lists ? 1940 ? 1949	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Findmypast.com has added another decade of records to the UK Outbound Passenger Lists currently available. Records now include 20 million names within 137,000 passenger lists spanning 1890 to 1949. Search the Passenger Lists now 1940s - Horrors, Hitler and the aftermath The first half of the 1940s was one of the darkest periods in history, with global war causing [...]
Thu, 31 Jan 2008	Read more

Titanic passenger lists free to view at findmypast.com	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
With the Christmas Day special edition of ‘Doctor Who’ set on board the RMS Titanic, findmypast.com is making the original handwritten RMS Titanic passenger lists FREE to view during the festive season so viewers can discover if their ancestors travelled on the same journey as the intrepid Doctor. The original passenger list will be available [...]
Thu, 20 Dec 2007	Read more

Evelyn Waugh	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Evelyn Waugh is primarily noted for his novels satirising the upper echelons of English Society, such as Vile Bodies, A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited. He was, however, also an avid traveller and writer of travel literature. Waugh can be found twice in the current Passenger Lists on ancestorsonboard.com; once travelling to Tangier in 1933 and once [...]
Mon, 19 Nov 2007	Read more

One of the last two surviving Titanic passengers dies	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Mrs Barbara Joyce Dainton (nee West) died on 16 October 2007 and was buried last week, in Truro, England. Mrs Dainton was a passenger on the Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage, along with her parents Edwy Arthur West, Ada Mary West and her elder sister Constance. She was 10 months old at the time of the sailing. She [...]
Mon, 12 Nov 2007	Read more

Domestics in the Passenger Lists	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
The Passenger Lists on ancestorsonboard.com allow you exclusive access to records which help to fill in the blanks in your family tree, to trace ancestors emigrating to start a new life and moving around for work. Just as importantly, the Passenger Lists can also provide a fascinating insight into the way that your ancestors lived their [...]
Tue, 23 Oct 2007	Read more

Roger Casement ? Reports and Republicanism	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Sir Roger Casement was a British diplomat, lauded for his influential reports on human rights violations in Congo and Peru. So groundbreaking and revelatory was his work in exposing the ill-treatment of natives in these countries, he was knighted in 1911. The Casement Report of 1904 led to the removal of King Leopold II of Belgium from [...]
Fri, 12 Oct 2007	Read more

Checking in with your American Ancestors	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
A feature of the Passenger Lists, from the 1920s on, is the inclusion of a last known address in the UK next to the passenger’s name. This is of enormous use and interest for family historians - seeing where an ancestor was living before they emigrated or, indeed, went on holiday. It is also an easy way [...]
Tue, 09 Oct 2007	Read more

Prince Aly Khan ? divorce and diplomacy	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Prince Ali Solomone Khan, known popularly as Prince Aly Khan, was the son of Aga Khan III and is perhaps best known for his association with the sport of horse-racing and his playboy lifestyle. Khan’s first wife was Joan Guinness, nee Yarde-Buller, whom he married in May 1936, just days after her divorce from Loel Guinness. Khan [...]
Fri, 05 Oct 2007	Read more

Passenger lists to Argentina	Stephen Rigden
Contrary to the impression sometimes given, Britain’s relationship with Argentina is as complex and multi-faceted as that with any other country. Military conflicts in 1806/07 and, more importantly for the modern memory, in 1982, and a football match in 1986, colour the picture but, when the bigger view is taken, it is clear that mutual [...]
Fri, 28 Sep 2007	Read more

Siegfried Sassoon ? a simple soldier boy.	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
The poet and author Siegfried Sassoon was best known for his writing on the futility and horrors of war. Born in Matfield, Kent, Sassoon enlisted in the military in the run up to World War One. His style of poetry altered dramatically as a result of the events of the conflict, and his meeting with Robert [...]
Tue, 25 Sep 2007	Read more

John McCormack ? a long way from Tipperary	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
John McCormack was one of the most highly acclaimed singers of his generation, recording and releasing hundreds of classical, traditional and popular songs. Born in Athlone, Ireland, McCormack won the gold medal for tenors at the Irish National Music Festival (Feis Ceoil) in 1903, at the age of 19. Following this he travelled to Italy to [...]
Thu, 20 Sep 2007	Read more

The Contenders ? The Gorgeous Gael, The Tonypandy Terror and The Whitechapel Windmill	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
The new decade of the BT27 Passenger Lists on ancestorsonboard.com contains a great number of notable figures from the world of art, politics and literature. An increasing presence in the Passenger Lists from the 1920s and ’30s on are figures drawn from the world of sport, as travelling to compete further afield became a more regular [...]
Wed, 19 Sep 2007	Read more

New decade added to the Passenger lists ? 1930-1939	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Findmypast.com has added another decade of records to the UK Outbound Passenger Lists currently available. Records now include 18.4 million names within 125,000 passenger lists spanning 1890 to 1939. The 1930s – an era of depression and despots The 1930s were a decade that began with the Great Depression, in the wake of the Wall Street Crash, [...]
Tue, 18 Sep 2007	Read more

Kaplinski on board	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Many of you will have seen the moving story of Natasha Kaplinsky’s family, on the first episode of the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? Her paternal grandfather, Moisza Kaplinski, can be found in the BT27 Passenger Lists on ancestorsonboard.com. He travelled 3rd class from London to Cape Town, as a 23 year old single [...]
Fri, 07 Sep 2007	Read more

Are you a child of the Empire?	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Empire’s Children contributor’s workshop. On Wednesday 8 August, Channel 4 is running a one-day workshop for people with stories to tell about the British Empire. The workshop is intended to complement the television series, Empire’s Children, currently airing on Monday nights at 9pm. Attendees are encouraged to bring photographs, transcripts and recordings if they have them. Visit the [...]
Mon, 06 Aug 2007	Read more

Titanic ? unknown child mystery solved at last	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Six days after the Titanic sank, the body of a baby boy was found and recovered from the North Atlantic waters by the recovery ship CS Mackay-Bennett. The child was not identified and, as such, was buried in Nova Scotia with a tombstone reading simply ‘The Unknown Child’. With the advent in recent years of DNA testing, a move [...]
Mon, 06 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 12	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 11	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 10	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 9	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 8	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 7	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” on [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 6	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 5	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 4	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 3	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 2	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Moreton Bay Photo 1	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge. The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia. View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” [...]
Wed, 01 Aug 2007	Read more

Bigamy and elopement on the Passenger Lists	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
Ancestorsonboard.com customer Catherine Major emailed us recently with a fascinating story that she uncovered whilst viewing the new decade of our Passenger Lists. According to a family story, Robert Bruce ran away with his mistress, a ‘Mrs Harding’, to start a new life, leaving behind his wife and their 1 year old son. On searching our new decade, [...]
Mon, 16 Jul 2007	Read more

Perhaps it was too loud for her	Declan Ryan, Findmypast Editor
An interesting point to note when searching the Passenger Lists is that they were usually filled in a day or two before the actual departure date, based on ticket sales, and kept at the offices of the shipping company before being sent on to the Board of Trade. An illustration of this may be found in [...]
Thu, 05 Jul 2007	Read more

Children of the Empire	Stephen Rigden
Find the Empire’s Children in your family tree Starting on Monday 2 July at 9pm a new six-part Channel 4 television programme called Empire’s Children will be examining the Imperial backgrounds of six British celebrities, including Dame Diana Rigg, David Steel, Jenny Eclair, Chris Bisson, Shobna Gulati and Adrian Lester. The programme will be looking at [...]
Wed, 04 Jul 2007	Read more

Another decade added to the UK Outbound Passenger Lists 1920 ? 1929	Stephen Rigden
Ancestorsonboard.com has added another decade of records to the UK Outbound Passenger Lists currently available. Records now include an incredible 15,749,960 names within 97,614 passenger lists spanning 1890 to 1929. There’s more information available on the original images than in previous decades, such as each passenger’s last address in the UK, making it easier than ever [...]
Mon, 02 Jul 2007	Read more

A surprising find ? conclusion	Debra Chatfield
My oldest surviving relative on the Towell side of the family is my Auntie Rene, now aged 86 and still with all her marbles intact. Could a visit to her shed some light on this new family mystery? Indeed it could! – Rene was able to confirm that both her grandfathers, Thomas and his brother [...]
Fri, 15 Jun 2007	Read more

A surprising find part 2	Debra Chatfield
The plot thickens! Having now checked my records at home, it transpires that Harriet Sarah Towell was the mother of Thomas Towell – and the ages that I have for them on my tree match perfectly with those on the passenger lists. BUT – I originally found these details on the 1891 England and Wales census, [...]
Thu, 15 Mar 2007	Read more

A surprising find	Debra Chatfield
I’ve been researching my family history for the past 8 years or so, and I’m pretty convinced that all my ancestors prior to my mother’s generation remained within the UK. So it was with zero expectation that I typed my maiden name “Towell” into ancestorsonboard.com to search all years of the outbound passenger lists currently [...]
Tue, 06 Mar 2007	Read more

Queens Advocate finds against The Crown	Stephen Rigden
Today it is considered impolite not to discreetly overlook the complicity of African peoples in the slave trade. However, it is highly unlikely that the slave trade would have flourished as it did without the widespread and enthusiastic participation of Africans. Tribes such as the Ashanti in what was then the Gold Coast (now Ghana) [...]
Wed, 28 Feb 2007	Read more

The loneliness of the South Atlantic	Stephen Rigden
It is not easy to find positive comment written about South Georgia during the late Victorian or Edwardian period. “A barren snow-covered island in the South Atlantic, lying 800 miles ESE of the Falklands”, says one source from 1889, invitingly, adding as an afterthought “sterile and uninhabited”. Yet every possession in the British Empire needed its [...]
Wed, 28 Feb 2007	Read more

Thousands are sailing	Stephen Rigden
“Thousands are sailing / Across the western ocean / To a land of opportunity / That some of them will never see” (The Pogues, “Thousands are Sailing”). By the time the Board of Trade began in 1890 to systematically collect details of all passengers on outward-bound long-haul sailings from Britain and Ireland - the records which now [...]
Wed, 28 Feb 2007	Read more

The last of the Mohegan	Stephen Rigden
In The National Archives’ BT27 passenger lists there is only one voyage for the Atlantic Transport Line’s Mohegan, on 12th October 1898, even though that voyage was actually the ship’s second. The reason for this is that the Mohegan was called the Cleopatra at the time of its first voyage on 29th July 1898. The [...]
Tue, 20 Feb 2007	Read more

New subscriptions ? unlimited access to UK Outbound Passenger Lists	Stephen Rigden
Findmypast.com has introduced two new ways to access UK Outbound Passenger List records, a data set launched by findmypast.com in association with The National Archives. The Explorer Package – Updated Unlimited access for this package has now been extended to include the complete set of records* on findmypast.com, including Birth, Marriage and Death records, Census, Passenger Lists [...]
Mon, 19 Feb 2007	Read more

How the British never ran out of steam	Stephen Rigden
British steamships were powered by the miners of South Wales and the North of England. Without coal, there was no steam. If you were the master of a British steamship, responsible for safely conveying passengers and your crew from, say, London to Auckland NZ, you would not wish to run out of coal mid-voyage, and there [...]
Fri, 16 Feb 2007	Read more

The Scottish West Indies	Stephen Rigden
It has been claimed that the Scots created modern civilisation as we know it (see Arthur Herman’s The Scottish Enlightenment – The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World). Certainly, Scots played a disproportionately large and influential role in the British Empire, making their mark across the globe as British army officers, administrators of colonies, plantation [...]
Fri, 16 Feb 2007	Read more

Professional squatters	Stephen Rigden
You learn something new every day working on the BT27 passenger list project. I now know more than I ever expected to know about the ports of Equatorial Guinea and the geography of the island of Borneo. I have also been reminded how much knowledge is culturally specific. For instance, when I wrote about Dr [...]
Thu, 15 Feb 2007	Read more

UK outbound passenger lists available from 1890 to 1909	Stephen Rigden
Findmypast.com has added another decade of records to the UK Outbound Passenger Lists currently available. Records now include a staggering 7.5 million names within 50,553 passenger lists spanning 1890 to 1909 alone. Records, once complete, will cover 1890 to 1960 and are expected to contain more than 30 million individual passengers. Nearly twice as many people [...]
Thu, 08 Feb 2007	Read more

Blue Riband	Stephen Rigden
The Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitania is renowned for various reasons, not least of which is its sinking by a German u-boat during the First World War. However, an earlier claim to fame also involved the Germans: the Lusitania was the British steamship which in October 1907 achieved the fastest ever west-bound transatlantic crossing (the first [...]
Thu, 08 Feb 2007	Read more

Fishing fleet found in BT27 passenger lists	Stephen Rigden
The attached image is the first page of the passenger list for the voyage of the Kaiser I Hind from London to Calcutta on 12th October 1893. The passenger list shows what appears to be part of a fishing fleet. There are no obvious fishermen on board, however, because this is a very special type of [...]
Thu, 08 Feb 2007	Read more

The South Africa Act 1909	Stephen Rigden
On 20th September 1909 the British Parliament passed an act for the union of Britain’s four territories in South Africa – the Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. On 25th September 1909, Louis Botha, the Boer leader and PM of the Transvaal, boarded the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Co’s Kenilworth Castle at Southampton [...]
Mon, 05 Feb 2007	Read more

So that is where they went: using BT27 passenger lists to break down brick walls	Stephen Rigden
Thomas was born in 1885 in his home town and I had found him marrying his wife Lucy in 1904 and having two children, Onslow and Lucy, born there in 1904 and 1906 respectively. But, after that, no trace: no evidence of his or of his wife’s death, or of the marriages or deaths of [...]
Mon, 05 Feb 2007	Read more

What is not in the BT27 passenger lists	Stephen Rigden
Many researchers have e-mailed in asking whether we will be putting on Ancestors On Board any outbound passenger lists for years before 1890. Outward-bound passenger lists in Britain were not officially required to be kept until 1890 and The National Archives’ BT27 record series only includes passenger lists between 1890 and 1960. This means that unfortunately [...]
Wed, 31 Jan 2007	Read more

Under threes go free	Stephen Rigden
Click on the link below to see one of the many miscellaneous items which appear within the BT27 passenger lists, together with the page of the passenger list to which it refers. The short and somewhat abrupt letter is from the Orient-Royal Mail shipping line (later to become a subsidiary of P&O) to the Board of [...]
Tue, 30 Jan 2007	Read more

Sun, sea and ruins	Stephen Rigden
When you see Palestine as a destination in a passenger list, your first thought is that the travellers on board must be pilgrims to the Holy Land. But click on the link below and look more closely at these passengers’ details from 1895. Their ages look wrong – many are in their thirties or forties. [...]
Fri, 26 Jan 2007	Read more

Anyone for Jones River?	Stephen Rigden
Some of the most fascinating of the passenger lists of the 1890s are those of the British & African Steam Navigation Company Ltd serving the West Coast of Africa. The lists themselves are pro forma, with “List of passengers per SS…” pre-printed at the top of the page followed by a space for the master [...]
Fri, 26 Jan 2007	Read more

Improved searches on ancestorsonboard passenger lists	Stephen Rigden
With so many records in the BT 27 Outbound Passenger Lists (over 3 million names in the first decade alone), it can sometimes be difficult to identify the right record if you’re searching for a common name. We’ve improved the search to make it easier to pinpoint the person you’re looking for. You can now specify the [...]
Thu, 25 Jan 2007	Read more

The non-passengers	Stephen Rigden
Outward-bound passenger lists from UK differ in many ways from their counterparts prepared upon arrival in the destination ports. The British lists were drawn up in the British Isles to meet the requirements of the shipping line and the government’s Board of Trade, while passenger manifests prepared in, say, USA or Australia or New Zealand [...]
Mon, 22 Jan 2007	Read more

Across the main to Maine	Stephen Rigden
The Allan Line and the Dominion Line both served North American ports from their bases in Liverpool. The more northerly transatlantic routes were seasonal. Sailings to Quebec and Montreal in Canada took place in summer, when the St Lawrence River was navigable for ocean-going vessels as far as Montreal, but switched to Halifax NS and [...]
Mon, 22 Jan 2007	Read more

Why we should be thankful for the Merchant Shipping Act 1906	Stephen Rigden
BT27 records details of many types of traveller: emigrant, businessman, tourist, diplomat and so on. A significant proportion of the emigrants within these passenger lists did not begin their journey in the British Isles, however. These emigrants are known as trans-migrants or, in the charming terminology of the time, alien trans-migrants. Typical of these are [...]
Wed, 17 Jan 2007	Read more

The Honourable Member	Stephen Rigden
Ancestorsonboard was launched last week with the long-distance outbound passenger lists for the period 1890-1899, being the first 10 years of records held within The National Archives’ BT27 record series. By the 1890s, Britain’s long relationship with India had become a complex entanglement, full of contradictions and paradoxes. It’s interesting to see in the passenger lists [...]
Wed, 17 Jan 2007	Read more

This year or last year	Stephen Rigden
Have you ever caught yourself, during the first week or two of a new year, out of habit still writing or typing the old year? It’s too easy a mistake to make: for 52 weeks you’ve been using the old year and it takes a week or two to absorb the novelty of the new [...]
Mon, 15 Jan 2007	Read more

Howzat!	Stephen Rigden
Cricket. The game of gentlemen amateurs, sportsmen with long flowing beards and voluminous sideburns, bowlers in, er, bowlers. Eternally travelling south of the Tropic of Capricorn in search of sporting glory. The image of a passenger list from September 1891 shows Lord Sheffield’s Eleven, sailing in First Saloon class from London to Sydney to give [...]
Fri, 12 Jan 2007	Read more

Penny farthing for your thoughts	Stephen Rigden
Hmm. We were forewarned to expect the unexpected in BT27 but we did not quite expect this. The drawing shown is on the front of a pre-printed passenger list covering the saloon passengers on the Lycia on its voyage from Liverpool to Kurrachee (as today’s Karachi was then known in the English-speaking world) and Bombay in [...]
Tue, 19 Dec 2006	Read more

Project update	Stephen Rigden
We’ve just finished loading the first decade (1890-1899) of Ancestors on Board on to our “test environment” (which is where we complete final rounds of quality checking before the records are published on the web). What is amazing, and unique to this set of passenger lists, is its truly global reach. There are of course [...]
Tue, 19 Dec 2006	Read more

Aberdare to Argentina	Stephen Rigden
The wanderlust of the Scots is well-documented and the Irish are notorious emigrants: indeed, sometimes the impression is given that there is a townland somewhere in the south of Ireland which breeds nothing but American presidents. However, the international movements of the Welsh tend to be overlooked when emigration from the British Isles is discussed. [...]
Tue, 19 Dec 2006	Read more

Brick Wall	Stephen Rigden
What do Miss Barbara Clark (prison officer, 27, of Aylesbury), John Woodrow (rabbit catcher, 21, of Lighthorne, Warwickshire), 40-year old Glaswegian dairymaid Miss Elizabeth Barr, and Rufus Workman (33-year old fireman of London N15) all have in common? They all left Britain in 1923 to start a new life in New Zealand. We do not [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more

Putting the steer into steerage	Stephen Rigden
The lowest class of human accommodation on board vessels was known as steerage, later euphemised into “third class” and, after WW1, into “tourist third cabin”. Among the passenger lists from the 1890s and 1900s, I have came across several passenger lists for voyages to USA on which there would be a group of a dozen [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more

The Cape Colony	Stephen Rigden
If we think of it at all, most of us think of Jewish migrants from the Russian Empire either side of 1900 as having fled the persecution and poverty there for the safe shores of USA. However, this is not the whole story. The passenger lists in BT27 help to illuminate the lesser-known story of [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more

Playing the record	Stephen Rigden
It’s always fascinating to investigate for yourself a new record source and I’ve been privileged enough to spend time looking at hundreds of the passenger lists from BT27. This has also crystallised for me the different experience you have with the original documents (or, in this case, high quality images of them), which you do [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more

USA via Canada?	Stephen Rigden
The number and frequency of sailings to USA shows how lucrative the transatlantic trade was, with various routes served by competing shipping lines. There were regular sailings from Southampton, Glasgow, Queenstown (Cobh of Cork) and other ports, but not all travellers to America went via American ports such as New York and Philadelphia. The alternative [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more

The Quarrier Children	Stephen Rigden
Everyone here in UK knows the name of Dr Barnardo’s but there were several other Victorian and Edwardian era charities with similar philosophies and aims. One was the Orphan Homes of Scotland, which had been set up in Glasgow by one William Quarrier in the 1870s and became known simply as “Quarriers”. One of the [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more

Welcome to ancestorsonboard.com	Stephen Rigden
Welcome to the BT27 Passenger Lists news section! This area will provide updates on the project as it develops: we aim to give you an insight into the process of digitising paper originals and bringing them to the web. We will also include details of interesting finds and keep you up-to-date with launch dates. This page [...]
Wed, 06 Dec 2006	Read more