A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about a new Ancestry database, Canada, Passenger and Crew Manifests, 1912-1939 and 1953-1962, and my confusion about its contents.
Despite my best efforts, I could not find my ancestors in the database, even though some of them arrived in Canada during those periods. I was also surprised to read that the source of this seemingly Canadian database was American, the National Archives in Washington, DC.
In the end, I asked if someone could perhaps explain why I could not find any of my ancestors.
Within a couple of hours of publishing the blog post, I received a message from Sara Chatfield, Genealogy, at Library and Archives Canada, explaining the record set.
“These are American government records that recorded the names of passengers bound for the United States, but landing at Canadian ports. They are not Canadian government records.” She recommended I read the National Archives article, The U.S. Immigration Service stationed immigrant inspectors at Canadian seaports of entry to collect the manifests and inspect U.S.-bound immigrants.
Soon after, Lesley Anderson at Ancestry.ca wrote a comment on the post. She had also found the title confusing and advised that Ancestry was changing the title within the hour.
Now, the title of the database is U.S., Passenger and Crew Lists for U.S.-Bound Vessels Arriving in Canada.
Nice to see Anestry’s positive reaction to a perplexing problem Were all our online puzzles so easily resolved.
Thank you for your initial blog post, Gail. Thanks to Sara Chatfield, Genealogy, at Library and Archives Canada for clarifying. And, finally, thanks to Ancestry.com for responding in a quick and appropriate manner.