Have you searched an online site for a record, didn’t find your ancestor, and gave up on that search?  If you haven’t looked at all versions of that source, you may have missed your man!  Let me give you an example.  I searched for an immigration record for Winifred Farrell who should have sailed from [...]

Have you ever been on a cruise?  I have.  If you have, you may have noticed there’s a difference between ships of different classes. Bruce is all about studying ships, especially cruise ships.  He knows the length and breadth and number of passengers for each one!  I’m sure you’re wondering why that might be of [...]

When an immigrant ship arrived at a U.S. harbor, it didn’t just pull up to a wharf and the passengers streamed out.  In the mid-1800s, the new immigrant usually went through a process somewhat like this: As the ship neared the port, a tug pulled alongside and tied on to tow the ship closer to [...]

Unless you’re fresh off the boat, or your family has all been in the U.S. since the beginning of our country, I’m betting you have an immigrant ancestor who fought in a war.  My grandfather, Whitney McQuire, was born in Ontario, Canada, yet fought for the U.S. in World War I, in Company I of [...]

If you ancestor was alive and enumerated in the 1900 U.S. census, lucky you!  With this census and those that followed, 1910, 1920, 1930, you have a clue as to the date of his arrival in the U.S. and whether he had become naturalized.  These are huge clues.  So, before you head to an online [...]

Wouldn’t you love to know what it was like for your ancestor to sail across the ocean to the United States of America?  So many questions could be answered:  Was the ship powered by steam or by sail?  How long was the trip?  How many passengers were on board?  What were the accommodations like?  What [...]

One summer Bruce and I traveled to England.  After researching for a few days in London, we rented a car and drove up the countryside to a hotel about an hour east of Liverpool.  (We learned long ago that to protect our sanity and our marriage, we wouldn’t drive in the big cities). The next [...]

Many of you learned the old rhyme, “I before E except after C…,” but in the case of passenger lists, it’s “E before I.”  Why?  There are two types of lists that involve entering or exiting the country.  It’s really easy to understand. Immigration:  When someone enters a country.  They are coming IN. Emigration:  When [...]

This subject should be of interest to just about everybody tracing their family tree in the U.S., because frankly, most of us descend from at least one immigrant. Even the Spanish were immigrants.   When you’re trying to find the place of your ancestor’s origin, there are several source types you should search: Census Records:  Census [...]

Have you ever gone to a cemetery for your immigrant ancestor’s tombstone, didn’t find it, and gave up and left? Gordon Remington, a professional genealogist, tells of the time he was doing some research in upstate New York looking for a place of birth for an immigrant who died in New York. Gordon went to [...]