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
The Bounty was in £ (pounds).
ReplyDeleteMigrating 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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I was teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, which included teaching a writing lab, and one day in the fall of 1994, I got into a discussion with my writing lab students about Forrest Gump," which had turned into a. Forrest Gump For example, running is a trademark of Forrest; he always runs to get out of a difficult situation.
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