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How do you find you ancestors on a ship manifest? Well, here’s a few tricks I’ve learned to successfully find a few of my own! Nothing is more satisfying than finding a name of an ancestor on a historical document, especially one that connects you to the ‘old world.’ Knowing how your family, or one of your family lines, got here actually makes you feel quite patriotic!
1. FIND THE SHIP MANIFEST YEAR
The first place to start is with biographical information. Find out as much you can about your ancestor in the US before trying to find him or her on a ship manifest – the point is that you should be building a profile of this person so that you will be able to cross reference information on a ship’s manifest to be able to confirm or deny that record as a match.
This must be done scientifically, that is to say, with corroborated facts. For help with Genealogy Research, see my “Ultimate Beginners Guide to Professional Genealogy Research Online” post.
Census data, death records, WWI and WWII enlistment records are great sources of narrowing down a date for when your ancestor arrived. Naturalization records are even better. The time frame I am most familiar with is between 1880 and 1940 through Ellis Island.
Not all records are infallible, though. This is from a 1920 Federal Census which shows one of my ancestors who arrived in 1905, his wife in 1906 and the fact that as of that year they were still aliens (“Al”). Be aware that Federal Census data are not always accurate and that you should be prepared to search a few years forwards or backwards. Any advanced researcher knows this.
For example, I found this ancestor in question actually arrived on Dec 29, 1906 . . . not 1905. To further complicate matters his Declaration of Intention paperwork had the wrong ship listed! Only though careful, genealogical research did I find the correct ship. You have to remember that Census data and immigration paperwork were taken down by enumerators by word of mouth who only wrote down what they heard. Not everyone remembered the name of the ship they came on, information was mistranscribed, etc., etc., etc.
Just remember that it’s not our ancestor’s fault we are often faced with inaccurate information; however, it is our responsibility to make sure we correct it.
2. SHIP MANIFEST IMMIGRATION RECORDS
Once you have a YEAR in mind, or a range of years, you want to begin searching for IMMIGRATION information. Only after you have exhausted trying to find immigration information such as a Declaration of Intention or a Petition for Naturalization, should you focus your search on ship manifests.
The reason I suggest this is because I don’t want you to repeat a lot of the mistakes I made while researching my ancestors!
Ancestry and Family Search have tons of immigration records and knowing when your ancestor arrived and a bit of his or her bio will help you identify the correct ship manifest. Any seasoned researcher knows that there are many deceptively similar records out there. For one of my great-grandfathers, there were about 10 other EXACT names, coming from the same area, arriving within a range of 3 years. No kidding!
How can you tell who is who? One TOP TIP is to create file folders and download each record you come across so that you can keep track of them. Through the process of elimination you can figure out which one is yours – actually, it’s the ‘process of corroboration.’ It’s also a technique I call “Research Redundancy.”
These records are snippets from 2 different Declaration of Intention documents. As you can see, sometimes you can get the ship’s name from there, other times not. These types of immigration documents were often filled out years after someone arrived.
The GOLDEN EGG of immigration information, as it pertains to ship manifests, is called a CERTIFICATE OF ARRIVAL!
You can often find these attached to Declaration of Intention and Petition for Naturalization records that have been archived at Family Search. Here’s what one looks like, we’ll cover these in more detail in the next section.
Now I will finish detailing how to become a master of the ship’s manifest! I will show you my successful techniques for rooting out the information you need to track down your ancestors and be able to know with pride on which ship your family arrived.
Preparing to find you ancestors on a ship manifest takes as much nerve as it did for them to sail on that ship! I will show you how to do it, but it will require perseverance. Getting used to the incongruities of a ship manifest is akin to gaining your sea legs, your equilibrium will be challenged as you try and decipher foul handwriting, foul information, and foul copies. Just like our ancestors encountered foul weather.
However, if you stay on course and weather this storm of research, you will arrive safely to port in the harbour of knowledge. Ok, that was a bit of an extended cheesy metaphor, but you get the point.
Finding the name of the ship your ancestor came over on is of vital importance and as I’ve stated finding a Certificate of Arrival is the golden egg. This is very crucial because a Certificate of Arrival is much more reliable than information found on a Declaration of Intention or a Petition for naturalization for the sole reason that the Certificate of Arrival was filled out AT THE TIME the immigrant landed and passed through Ellis Island.
By contrast, a Declaration of Intention could be filled out by an immigrant YEARS after they were in the United States. Many people chose to fill these out immediately; however, others chose not to and by the time they did, the name of the ship was either forgotten or entered incorrectly.
3. IDENTIFYING THE CORRECT SHIP MANIFEST
At this point you should have a YEAR and a DOCUMENT that clues you in to the ship you will be looking for. Now you will be searching through record databases to find that ship and find the name of your ancestor on it.
Always remember: if you find your ancestor on the first try, you’re awesome! If not, that’s normal! Don’t give up, keep it scientific, and you will find them. I spent up to 6 months trying to locate a particular ancestor.
Begin your search of a ship manifest through Ancestry and Family Search. Even if you think you found who you are looking for, keep searching around similar records to make sure you are not leaving other possibilities by the road side.
Again, experience dictates that there were many different people with very similar names on many different ships arriving in the year(s) you are looking for.
The benefit of Ancestry’s and Family Search’s search algorithms is that you can play with their soundex parameters. This is super important because you cannot expect that your ancestor’s name will be spelt as you expect it to be!
For example, my great-grandfather who came from Lithuania has the last name of Stanišauskas. According to his naturalization documents, he came over on the S.S. Canopic. After tirelessly searching every record and basically reading every page of the Canopic’s manifests for 1906 I struck out! Come to find out that he actually came over on the S.S. Cassel under the name Stanilsawski and was listed in the search database index something closer to Wilchesky.
If I can be successful, so can you, using the techniques I’m sharing.
If Ancestry and Family Search doesn’t work then here’s a TOP TIP: use the Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island website to search for your ship manifest. Their search engine is kind of fussy to me but you can preview any manifest you like by zooming in. The resolution is not always where you would like it to be but it’s a great place to start searching by specific parameters: ship, year, port, etc.
The trick is once you think you’ve identified the actual ship and manifest you want, go back to Ancestry or Family Search and find it there through a specific records search. You can examine it in high-resolution via their browser. Keep doing this until you’ve found what you’re looking for.
4. MANIFEST FURTHER RESEARCH
Even after all that, if you still are unable to locate your ancestor on a ship manifest yet know they came over to the US via Ellis Island, you will have to broaden your research. You will need to investigate every aspect of their life during this time in the US, find as many supporting immigration documents from State Archives obtaining original scans, learn about how and why people emigrated during the time your ancestor left, understand which ships left from which ports and the routes they traveled, join a research group on social media to find others who know the specifics of the country of origin your ancestor came from.
That’s a lot, but it MUST be done. You must keep detailed records of each ship’s manifest you come across which should be placed in well-organized files on your computer. Each manifest should be labeled by year; person’s name; and ship.
Using the Ellis Island database does take a bit of skill. Luckily I’ve written a comprehensive guide on 6 Ways To Find Hidden Information On Ellis Island Manifests just to tackle this particular subject.
You might be pleasantly surprised as well. For one person I was researching I found 2 ship manifests which looked like the same person yet appeared to be conflicting records. I couldn’t figure out what to do; turns out, BOTH WERE him! One was his ship manifest when he first came to the US, and the other was when he went back to Lithuania to visit family.
Only through keeping meticulous records was I able to score 2 records instead of 1.
Another TOP TIP and lifeline for me has been focusing my searches on the TOWN that my ancestors came from. It seems like a long shot but since all of my ancestors came from rural farming villages, redirecting my search parameters towards specific locations actually helped me successfully find who I was looking for, and more! This technique has been so successful that through a single search I’ve found a few other potential relatives – you can’t be from a small hamlet have the same surname and not be related.
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