Bear with me.
I tried to publish the news about Findmypast’s latest records a couple of days ago, but I was sidetracked by a discovery I made about my grandmother’s cousin whose name appears on a Lusitania passenger list in 1900.
In other words, I went down, down the rabbit hole and just now came up for air… until I go back down again.
Findmypast’s record collection grew by millions of new records last week, with a new collection of passenger lists, naturalizations, and more newspaper pages.
Britain and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960
Departure ports in this collection include Montreal, Quebec City, St. John, New York, Cape Town, and Melbourne.
Theses records are from the more than 16 million passenger lists held by The National Archives from 1878 to 1960.
This collection is where I made my latest discovery.
Searching on the passenger lists, I learned that my grandmother’s cousin, Robert Walter Ernest Gillis, sailed from Montreal to Liverpool in July 1900. Originally from Ireland, he had been living in Montreal since 1894 when he was 20 years old. Eleven months after his trip to Liverpool, Walter left Canada for Sydney, Australia.
So, now, I wonder why he took the trip. Was it to visit his parents in County Down, Northern Ireland, because he knew he had plans to emigrate to Australia? Or was it for some other reason? I’ve also searched newspapers for some mention of him regarding this trip, but I came up empty.
I also researched how long a voyage by ship lasted from Montreal to Liverpool (10 days) and what the accommodations were like for a second-class passenger.
Now, back to what else Findmypast recently made available.
Britain & Ireland Naturalisations, 1844-1890
There are 413,558 new records, covering the years 1844-1990, in this collection. The records provide details on those who became citizens of the UK and Ireland.
New Newspaper Titles
Academy, 1869-1915
Bradford Daily Argus, 1893-1894, 1898-1902, 1905-1908, 1910, 1912-1914, 1920-1923
Largs & Millport Herald, 1883-1884
Now, I must go back down the rabbit hole to figure out why Walter sailed to Liverpool.
