This Tuesday I had an exciting morning at the National Archives. An experience a la Nicolas Cage...kind of. I did have in my hands a document lost to the world in a dusty back room. A document not recorded on any microfiche nor any heavy, hardbound index. A document that is also a key to the history of the 19th-century...or at least to the history of my family.
Okay, really it is a passenger list from the E. & E. Perkins which docked (we thought) in New York harbor on November 7, 1849. I thought I was just going in to take a look at the microfiche and print out a copy of the E. & E. Perkins passenger list for Erin. But it was not on the microfilm and not listed on any of the databases which get their information from the National Archives. One of the workers at the National Archives remembered that they had gotten boxes of documents from Castle Garden that had been organized by volunteers. (Castle Garden was the entry point for immigrants before Ellis Island.) She went to that database and found the ship name and the correct date. This box was pulled out. Digging gently through the box of delicate documents, we found the correct passenger list. How thrilling it was to carefully watch it being unfolded and then to be able to sit with the list and examine it! It was really touching to see the Ferguson names on there knowing they are my ancestors--and to think what is must have been like to pick up and move across an ocean! Pick up and move "one piano forte, nine boxes, and 2 bbls" according to the list...along with five children! (Matilda Ferguson is third name from the top and the others follow below.)
Right before I went to the Archives, I was 2 floors down in the same Federal building submitting my fingerprints for my UK visa application. I found the parellels between my upcoming trip and Matilda's past voyage a little bit eery and strangely cool. Here I was preparing to return to the place that my family left 150+ years ago. Getting ready for my own journey across the ocean.
Okay, really it is a passenger list from the E. & E. Perkins which docked (we thought) in New York harbor on November 7, 1849. I thought I was just going in to take a look at the microfiche and print out a copy of the E. & E. Perkins passenger list for Erin. But it was not on the microfilm and not listed on any of the databases which get their information from the National Archives. One of the workers at the National Archives remembered that they had gotten boxes of documents from Castle Garden that had been organized by volunteers. (Castle Garden was the entry point for immigrants before Ellis Island.) She went to that database and found the ship name and the correct date. This box was pulled out. Digging gently through the box of delicate documents, we found the correct passenger list. How thrilling it was to carefully watch it being unfolded and then to be able to sit with the list and examine it! It was really touching to see the Ferguson names on there knowing they are my ancestors--and to think what is must have been like to pick up and move across an ocean! Pick up and move "one piano forte, nine boxes, and 2 bbls" according to the list...along with five children! (Matilda Ferguson is third name from the top and the others follow below.)
Right before I went to the Archives, I was 2 floors down in the same Federal building submitting my fingerprints for my UK visa application. I found the parellels between my upcoming trip and Matilda's past voyage a little bit eery and strangely cool. Here I was preparing to return to the place that my family left 150+ years ago. Getting ready for my own journey across the ocean.
Hi Angela, You what know another fun thing is on the 22nd of June 1871 our Great-Grandmother was born in Glasgow.
ReplyDeleteHey Angela - really great to see this, after our visit to Ellis Island in May and a chance to learn about immigres' arrivals. We even got to see Castle Garden - makes all this come a bit more to life? So, with these people arriving in 1849, where do they fit into our family tree? Maybe I should get Erin to send the most current tree?
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