AUS-VIC-GIPPSLAND-L Archives

From: Ada Ackerly <>
Subject: [AVG] Victorian Passenger Lists Information Proffered to listers
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 12:15:20 +1100

Hello Listers,

There was recently an enquiry on the passenger list microfiche for Victoria
Inwards. As my reply possibly will interest other listers who are not on
Aussie Gen Research, I am repeating it here:

Hello Mac,

As one who worked on the transcribing of those shipping lists for over ten
years, I will try to answer your question, which was :

" I have a passenger in the index listed twice on 2 different fiche for the
same voyage and wondered why. "

I will presume that you are right, and these two entries are of the same
person, and not another person with the same name.....

Firstly, the passenger lists varied from one single sheet with one single
passenger, to ten or twenty five pages with hundreds of passengers, and
these large lists quite likely could extend over the end and beginning of
two microfiche.

Some lists had a couple of pages on blue stock, the rest on white. These
blue pages often included extra or conflicting information on some of the
passengers listed in the white pages ( maybe spelling, maybe age, maybe
other information), a sort of duplication of part of the listing on the
white pages. So the information on both the blue and white pages had to be
included, even if it was an exact duplication, as they had been filmed for
the microfiche and were part of the list.

A further complication was that sometimes the blue pages were filmed as
pages one, two, etc and sometimes they were filmed after the last page of
the full (white) list. The page numbering on the index shows the order in
which the sheets were filmed and appear on the microfiche. With viewing, it
can be seen that the blue pages have a slight "greying" of the background,
so they can be identified.

Sometimes the last pages on any list, no matter what year, list particular
passengers for specific reasons:

They may have died, been born, fallen overboard and lost at sea. Sometimes
a passenger has committed a crime. Sometimes they are found to be lunatics,
or blind, and the immigration officer considers they may become a charge on
the state. Stowaways are also listed on the last page. Shipwrecked crew
members picked up or transferred from a sinking wreck appear on the last
page. Members of the shipping company travelling on company business are on
the last page.

And on the "Assisted (or Bounty) Immigrants" listings, the last pages
include girls who have sexually misbehaved (and occasionally a whole
"depraved" family) or an unaccompanied widow with children, or an
unaccompanied under age boy, who will not be elligible for their free
passage, and their costs will be charged to the "importer", who expected to
receive his deferred "Bounty" payment for commissioning the shipload of
workers. Such persons were not even allowed to use the immigation barracks,
but were thrown on their own resources.

Is that a help to you (and to those looking over our shoulders}?

The passenger index was meant to send enquirers direct to the microfiched
passenger lists, where they can get the port their forebears left, the date
they left, length of time the voyage took, the Captain & surgeon's name,
can look over it to see if there are any families that their forebears
married into, or who remained friends, or travelled with them in Victoria
to set up their new life in the same town, who became partners in business.
To see if they are listed as ill on the voyage, if the ship was a healthy
ship, if it was placed in quarantine, etc.

And the day of arrival sends you to newspaper shipping columns, to see if
the shipping reporter wrote up the voyage, if the Captain went to court
because he starved the passengers, if the Doctor is charged with
incompetence, if the grateful passengers placed a memorial in the paper
thanking the Captain for his stewardship, etc. Even the weather on arrival
day can add colour to the arrival.

And then to the Police Gazettes, to see if their luggage was stolen off the
wharf before they could start their new life!

Isn't family history detective work fun!!!


regards,
Ada Ackerly, Melbourne, Australia
formerly Ackerly DocuSearch

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