STEWART-L Archives

Archiver > STEWART > 2003-02 > 1045495869


From: Lauren Boyd <>
Subject: [STEWART] Article of Interest: IMMIGRANT SHIPS TRANSCRIBERS GUILD
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 07:41:24 -0800


IMMIGRANT SHIPS TRANSCRIBERS GUILD
http://istg.rootsweb.com/

By Patty MacFarlane McCormack
ISTG Founder/Coordinator

When I was a young girl, I would sit with my grandmother at the
huge oak dining room table on gloomy Saturday afternoons. As the
rain trickled down the window panes behind the lace curtains and
spilled off the eaves onto the Lily of the Valley planted along
the side of the house, we would label the back of old sepia
photographs and file yellowed newspaper clippings in a shoebox.
Over the years, one shoebox became many.

My grandmother died on 2 December 1980, almost two months after
my fifth child was born and my mother became the family
historian. She continued the shoebox tradition for many years
with the help of my three younger sisters and brother, as I was
now living in another state.

I returned home when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer
in 1996. With video camera in hand, my two youngest children and
I walked the cemeteries in Rome, New York with her. I filmed the
tombstones of our ancestors and she spoke, piecing together the
history of our lives, holding to her firm belief that we needed
to know those who came before us.

Like an unbroken link, she with me as I came into the world and
I at her side as she left it, the torch was passed to me in July
of 1998. I returned to my home in Colorado with boxes of our
treasured past and a burning desire to discover even more. I
sought out information on the Internet which was not there and
soon knew the frustration of so many others on the same quest.

That same year, in honor of my grandmother and my mother,
Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild was born on September 16th,
the week of both their birthdays. We seek to help you know the
brave souls who dared to cross the sea, how and why they came,
what they may have endured to get here and how they are a part
of the tapestry of your life. The threads of your tapestry are
many; some dance with brilliant colors, others are dark and
frayed, yet every thread contributes to its beauty. In present
day, precious threads of my tapestry include a wonderful man,
six children and eleven grandchildren, with number twelve about
to enter the design in March.]

The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild ("ISTG" or "the Guild")
has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1998. The
original group of 16 volunteers has grown to 500 volunteers who
span the globe. They all hold dear the philosophy that the
search for records of our ancestors' immigration should be
easier than it has been in the past.

The mind-numbing work of searching through microfilmed passenger
lists can take a toll on just about anyone. Many people do not
have a facility nearby, many lack the good eyesight it requires,
and many are nearly housebound for one reason or another. Now
volunteers decipher and transcribe passenger lists which then
are uploaded to the ISTG Web site. The Guild now has its own
microfilm reader/copier and a small, but steadily expanding,
library of films from which to work. Lists are copied and mailed
to the volunteers, who work with a buddy to assure the best
possible transcription.

Volumes 1-5 each contain 1,000 transcribed passenger lists and
Volume 6 is working its way toward another thousand as new lists
are added several times each week. The index in each volume has
a search engine at the bottom of the page and the entire ISTG
Web site is easily searched by using it. Each volume also can be
searched manually by name of ship, port of departure, port of
arrival, name of passenger, or captain's name.

The search by surname option recently has been expanded to
include the full names of each passenger and their number on the
passenger list. This helps researchers identify parents with
children of the same name, and having the passenger number
available makes the data easy to locate on the list. We also
include in the full name search any and all possibilities the
transcriber notes when a name on the microfilm is difficult to
read or in doubt. For example, you will find several variations
of a passenger name to allow for phonetic spelling or difficulty
in communicating, and also the name of friends or relatives the
passenger intends to join as well as the name of the nearest
living relative in the country left behind (included on many of
the passenger lists in the late 1800s). The name of the relative
further assists the researcher because it reveals who in the
family had already arrived, who remained at home, and where that
home was.

Other passenger list projects linked from the ISTG Web page are:
The Bremen Project; 1889 Austria, Poland and Galicia Immigrants;
Irish to Argentina; WW II Refugees to Australia; 1901-1903 Ships
Project; and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada 1851-1872.

A recent addition to ISTG are maritime news article excerpts
from Irish newspapers from 1700 to 1912, contributed primarily
by Dennis Ahern, with some contributions by Cathy Joynt and
Alison Causton. The names of ships and surnames mentioned in the
articles are indexed. Please visit Ships News of the Past. Under
General News you will find a wealth of information contributed
by Barbara Anderson. The articles are from the ROMAN CITIZEN
newspaper, Rome, Oneida County, New York. ISTG wishes to thank
these contributors publicly for their generous donation to the
ISTG Maritime News Project.

I think we all enjoy looking at the old photographs that have
been passed down for many generations. You can submit photos of
your ancestors and view those submitted by others by checking
out Immigrant Pictures. You'll also find nautical poems and
other musings, the 1820 Act re: Passenger Lists and ISTG's
stupendous THE COMPASS.

THE COMPASS is a guide to assist in the search for immigrant-
related information and its aim is to provide the best and most
up-to-date information available with special emphasis on
passenger lists, ships, ship images and descriptions, emigrant
and ethnic databases, and resources such as archives, libraries
and museums online and offline. There are in-depth descriptions
of each site, and some, due to the extensive amount of
information, are listed under more than one topic.

Many ports of entry in the United States and other countries
tell a story. THE COMPASS offers letters and diaries written by
immigrants and published articles about their experiences.
Information is provided about specific ships and shipwrecks,
some rescues but many whose fate is unknown.

There are lists of sites on the Internet with passenger lists,
regardless of the number of passengers on any given list. With
each site you are given the ship's name, the port and date of
departure, and the port and date of arrival, if known. If you
find something that sounds like a possible connection, you can
use the link to that site where you will find the actual list.
You don't have to go through a number of links to get to a list,
only to discover that the list you are looking at not only is
from the wrong country but also perhaps the wrong century.

The ISTG COMPASS tries to simplify your immigrant research,
which often can be a confusing and overwhelming task. Thousands
of hours have gone into this area of ISTG and we hope you will
find it helpful.

Maintaining a free access site such as ISTG requires some
financial support. By purchasing items from links in the ISTG
Mall you can contribute to the continuation of the ISTG project.
A small percentage of each sale resulting from the link on the
ISTG site is paid to ISTG to help cover expenses. Items in the
ISTG Mall include maritime books, genealogy books, posters,
audio/video, and many other miscellaneous items. [Editor's Note:
This item caught my eye: "SHE CAPTAINS: HEROINES AND HELLIONS
OF THE SEA, by Joan Durett. This maritime history chronicles the
lives and exploits of warrior women who sailed the seas from the
times of the Greeks and Romans up to the 19th century."]

If you find an ancestor on a ship on ISTG and would like your
ancestor's name to be linked to your e-mail address or Web page,
please submit information about the passenger, where settled,
children, and even a photo if you have one, along with the name
of the ship and date of arrival. This information should be sent
to Sheila Tate , Production Coordinator. Also
let the transcriber know that their hard work has benefited you
by clicking on their name, found at the bottom of the manifest.

.................................................

Reprinted with permission.

Previously published in MISSING LINKS,Vol. 8, No. 7, 16 February 2003
http://www.petuniapress.com

This thread: