25 October 2007

The inGeneas Database Grows Again
With Almost 17,000 New Records Added

I have just added 16,714 significant passenger list, immigration and marriage records.

Key among the new records are 1,397 passenger lists for 23 ship arrivals at eastern Canadian ports between 1738 and 1864 including 11 ships prior to 1820.  Beginning in 1865 for the port of Quebec, the Canadian government began to use ship passenger lists as official immigration documentation and, thus, began to archive the lists.  Prior to 1865, as there was no official reason to retain the manifests, most have not survived.  This makes all manifests prior to 1865 very genealogically valuable and, for the most part, the earlier the list, the more valuable it is.

I also expanded inGeneas’s series of passenger records for the port of Quebec. These 8,572 records are not indexed anywhere and are for 11 ship arrivals from 28 October 1872 to 19 May 1873.  The ships departed from the following ports: Liverpool; Glasgow; London; Plymouth; Derry; Moville; and, Dublin. The passenger records for the port of Quebec typically contain the following information: port and date of embarkation; ship's name; port and date of arrival; passenger's name, profession or occupation, marital status, age (or whether adult, child or infant or by age grouping); place at which passenger has contracted to land; master’s name; and, sometimes, destination in North America.

Furthermore, I added 6,714 marriage records from 1858 to 1869 for Ontario County in the province of Ontario. In addition, I indexed separately records for any mother of the bride or groom when a maiden name was given and records for any father of the bride or groom when the father's surname differs from that of the bride or groom. Records in this group typically contain the following information:  age, residence, place of birth and parents’ names for both the bride and groom; witnesses’ names and places of residence; date and location of the marriage; and, the name of the minister officiating at the ceremony.

Finally, 85 immigration records were added for the year 1831.

To find any of the records mentioned above, just go to the inGeneas Database at http://www.ingeneas.com/ingeneas/index.html and do a search with any surname and, optionally, given name or initial. You will be able to tell what kind of records you have found by looking at the Source column on the Search Results screen. Both the pre-1865 passenger records and the Quebec passenger records for 1872 and 1873 show as Passenger Record in the Source column. The Ontario county marriage records for 1858-1869 show as Vital Statistics and the immigration records for 1831 show as Immigration Records.  Then, click on the record number and a description will appear which will tell you a bit more about the record and precisely what information the record typically contains.

All of the records just added to the database are, as is always the case, highlighted with "NEW" flags to the far right of every Search Results screen.

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