Passenger lists are a great resource that people know about but probably aren't using
to the fullest. Howdy, my name is Devon Noel Lee with Family History Fanatics,
and I want to help you dive deeper into the passenger list that helped
our ancestors get across the ocean. If your ancestor was traveling across the ocean in
the 1900s or the 1800s, chances are there is a passenger list in the U.S Archives.
Discussing when your ancestors landed Stateside, one website is particularly
helpful in helping you trace your ancestors in passenger records. And that is Ancestry.com.
Now one of the things I would recommend that you do when you're using Ancestry.com,
is not necessarily go into hints. Occasionally you will find some hints
for passenger records. But take an individual ancestor, and then go up to the top search bar
in their profile and click on the "Search" button. Ancestry will take you to the search page and it
will pre-load the information at the top with your ancestor's name and their family members. Now,
what you need to do is scroll down this column until you see the filters. Notice
that there are quite a few filters. But the one we're most interested in is the one that
says 'Immigration and emigration,' 'passenger list,' and 'crew list.'
Just because your ancestor didn't necessarily emigrate or immigrate,
they may have traveled on a ship and you will want to see where they went and what they might
have done. So in this case, after I filtered Angeline Long to the immigration passenger list,
I found an entry that looked extremely promising. First of all, the birth date matched up. As well
as the birthplace, and I do know that she was alive in 1928. So, could this be
my ancestor onboard a ship even though she was born in the U.S., married in the U.S.,
had children in the U.S., and died in the U.S.? After clicking on that hint, I came
to this index page. And again the information does look promising. So, as a good genealogist,
(we're all striving to be great genealogists) I'm going to click on "View" to look at the original
record. Don't stop at just this index. There are details on these records you won't want to miss.
So, here I am on the record and I'm going to zoom in look at entry number 2.
So, I'm pretty confident this is my person. She's 72. She's female, and she's a widow. Now,
I see that there is Mansfield, Ohio and this is her place of birth which matches the information
I had before. When I go over here, I hope some spidey-senses are starting to jump out if they
haven't already. Three passengers are associated with this address in the United States. This is
either where they're planning to go or where they actually live in the United States. But
the address 304 Deshler Avenue, Columbusm Ohio, is connected to three women. So, let's go back
and look at them. There's Gertrude Rang and Elizabeth Long. And when I saw those names,
I knew this was my family. Angeline had a daughter named Elizabeth. Notice she's 37 and she's single.
Elizabeth worked for the Red Cross and never married. Her daughter Gertrude L Rang married
fairly young and had a daughter named Geraldine Rang and then divorced her husband. And so,
she often told people she was a widow and that simply wasn't true. She was divorced. And then
you start to see information on these more modern records that give you things that you
might not have had before. There is a birth date and place for both daughters of Angeline Long.
One thing to keep in mind is that, if you don't have a birth record for your ancestors, records
like these can serve as substitutes. Often people were using passports before they got on board some
of these ships in the 1920s and 30s. So, this is 1928. So, the use of passports increased and more
modern records. And so, those passports had to have validation of your birth information. And
then that passport got used to be a passenger on the ship. And now, you're creating a circle of
documentation to support a birth date. And I can tell you in 1855 there wasn't a birth record for
Angeline. And now, I have one great reasons to go into modern passenger records. So, be curious
when you're using Ancestry. Explore the different record collections, even though you may think they
probably didn't appear in these records. You never know. They just might. So, leverage those filters.
However sometimes the filters aren't really good and you have to use the Card Catalog instead.
Meet Guy Evans Springer. In the 1930s census record, it says that he was a veteran of the
previous war. So, that would be World War I. If you have an ancestor that was in World War I,
I'm gonna invite you to check out this next tip to see if those military-serving ancestors hopped on
board a ship. Now, I'm also going to recommend, even if your ancestor wrote 'no' in that column,
go ahead and take a gander at these passenger records. Some people didn't always tell the truth
about their veterans status in census records. And this is one way that you can confirm or refute the
claims that they make on those records. So, even if they say 'no,' go ahead
and take a look at this collection. When you do the search the way I showed
you for Angeline, you can then filter to the immigration list as I showed you before. However,
when you look at the different entries, you don't see the collections I'm looking for. And
you may think, "Ah! My ancestor didn't go aboard a ship." In fact, here's a Guy Springer and he's
in Boston. And this information just doesn't line up with the Guy that I'm looking for from
Minnesota. And isn't it that interesting I'm looking for a guy and his name is Guy?
For those military aged ancestors, I want you to use the Card Catalog on Ancestry. I want you to
come over to the tab field that says 'keywords' and type in the word 'transport.' The 'transport'
keyword filters this list to some really great military records. Some ship crossings that you'll
want to be paying attention to. There's the U.S World War I Transport Ships list,
but I also really like this Army Transport Service Arriving and Departure Collection. So,
let's dive into that one. So, we're going to keep our search extremely broad. All we're going to
do is we're gonna add in the name Guy E Springer and nothing else. And we're going to go ahead and
click "Search." And now, when I look at the list I'm starting to get super excited. Guy E Springer
and then here's a departure date. So, this is during the World War I time period. Departure
places. Arrival. And then there's a relative named Mary. Now, something you should know is that the
Guy I'm looking for, his mother's name is Mary. I'm really getting excited. So, what should we
do? We need to go and explore one of these hints. So, when I take the first one and dive into it
there is Guy E Springer. And I have his military ID. Now, this is really exciting if you don't
know the service members number and you're trying to access records for them from the
National Archives. Now, you have their service number. You also have their rank. And you will
have the unit. If you see ditto marks, you might have to go to the top of this page
or to previous pages to find out what the unit was because when they typed they didn't always
type the same thing over and over again. But we have the unit. But here is the secret sauce of
these records. 'Mrs Mary Springer - mother.' Yes, okay! Now, there's one more bit of information to
guarantee that this is our relative and that's the address. And having used city directories
and census records and seeing this address. I know that this Guy is the Guy I was looking for.
So, this was just a quick video to get you excited about looking at passenger records. Sometimes you
will get hints in the ancestry hinting tree. And sometimes you're just gonna have to be curious and
put your ancestors name in the search and try the filter. Or go into the Card Catalog and try some
of the other collections that are buried a little bit deeper in the collections on Ancestry. There
are a couple other things that I want you to keep in mind. The further back in time you go, the less
information that are on the records. There is a question of 'can you find your ancestor's hometown
on these records?' Well, it depends. And the more modern the record, the more likely you're going
to find that home village. In the case of Angeline Young, you did see her birthplace and a birthday.
Little details that I was struggling to find in other records. But the further back you go, for
instance my German immigrant ancestors the only thing that's listed on those records are Baden or
Hanover. I don't have the individual villages. That is definitely something I wish all of the
passenger records would have but it's just not always the case. The other thing to keep in mind.
There are passenger lists that were created at the port of departure there are some in LaHarve,
France. There are some from Bremen and Hamburg, Germany. There's some from the Holland, Norway,
Sweden, and the United Kingdom. I will leave a link to some of these collections in the Show
Notes. So, be sure to check the description box. Let me know what kind of success you're finding
in passenger lists. And if you're not finding success,
let me know some of the questions you have. Thanks for watching. If you like this video,
be sure to like, comment, share, and consider becoming a channel member. And if you're ready
for something new about Ancestry.com, check out the video right up here.