The Ships List website, previously located at TheShipsList.com, appears to have been taken offline in August.
Has it disappeared for good? So far, I’ve been unable to find anyone who knows happened to it and if it will return.
For 25 years, The Ships List has been a popular, free website. Like many, I added it to my own Genealogy Research Toolbox.
The free website was created by Sue Swiggum and Marj Kohli in 1999 to help people find their ancestors on ships’ passenger lists to Canada, the United States, Australia and South Africa. These are passenger lists that are not readily available elsewhere. It was a particularly useful site when looking for ship lists to Canada prior to 1865.
The databases included company fleet lists, marriages at sea, ship descriptions, and voyage histories.
But there is a glimmer of good news.
Thanks to the Wayback Machine, the digital archive of the internet, it is still possible to look at much of The Ships Lists website. While the search function does not appear to work, it looks like many, if not all, of the lists can be opened to view.
If you know what happened to The Ships List, please let me know. Let’s hope it will be brought back online.
