Thursday, August 29, 2013

A Forrest Gump Moment - Ancestry.com Immigration and Travel Collection Free Through 2 September

I received an email today from Ancestry.com saying that their Immigration and Travel Collection was accessible for FREE through Labor Day (2 September 2013).  You do need to be a registered user to access these records (but not a subscriber).

Since I don't have a World Explorer subscription, this is an opportunity to look for records in that collection that my U.S. subscription won't allow me to see.

I wanted to see if there were any more records for Alexander and Rachel Whittle.  I had found a record previously for their migration from England to Australia, in the form of an index card obviously taken from some sort of manifest; this was a derivative source record.

When I checked for the name Alex* Wh*t*l* (because I knew that names can be spelled differently - so I just used the consonants), I quickly found both Alexander and Rachell Whittell in the New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896 database:



Here is Rachael Whittell's entry, which also lists her daughter, Elizabeth (aged 9 months):



Another entry also appeared on the search results list, so I looked at that and saw a passenger list:



The Whittle family (spelled Whittle, not Whittell) are on the first three lines on the image above.

These three pages provide a bit more information about Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle, and may be "original source documents rather than derivative documents.  The passenger list above even lists a "Bounty" of 19 pounds for each adult, and 38 pence (?) for a child.

Once again, my "Forrest Gump Principle of Genealogy Searching" applies - "Genealogy research is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to find, but you have to look everywhere your 'genealogy gem' might be hiding."



I love it when good things, and major genealogy fun, happen!  Thank you, Ancestry!

The lesson learned here is:  When genealogy opportunity knocks, open that door.  Think of the possibilities for adding to your research knowledge when freely accessible databases become available, even for a limited time.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/08/a-forrest-gump-moment-ancestrycom.html

Copyright (c) 2013), Randall J. Seaver

3 comments:

Rosemary said...

The Bounty was in £ (pounds).

nancy john said...

Migrating to a country is a big decision, and a thing not to be taken lightly. Esecially a country like Australia where there are numerous opportunities in almost all of its states.

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