Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Week 2 (Jan. 8-14): Origins

The prompt for this week is 'Origins', which tends to make me think of the origins of my family in Australia, and why my ancestors made the momentous decision to leave their homelands and families and make the journey to Australia.

On my paternal side, our history in Australia is a short one.  My father's parents were born and married in England before deciding to try their luck in Australia, arriving here in the early 20th century.  They arrived as a newly married couple, with all ten of their children born in Australia.  In their early years the family moved several times around Victoria, with the children dispersing around the southern states as they established their own families.

On my mother's side our Australian origins go back further.

My great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania around 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  James’s younger sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.

Then there is my German branch of the family tree.  Carl Friedrich Beseler, known in Australia as Frederick, was born around 1810 in Hanover, Germany.  He was a shoemaker in Germany and a farmer in Australia, arriving in Adelaide on 1 April 1848 on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany.  Passengers listed were Frederick Beseler, Shoemaker, Mrs Beseler and 5 children.  The family lived in South Australia for 7 years before travelling overland to Victoria, where they settled near Ercildown.  Several members of the family are buried in Learmonth Cemetery. 

I would like to know what prompted these families, with young children in tow, to pack up and move halfway around the world, settle in one state of Australia, then pack up and move again several years later.  Land in their homelands would have been difficult and costly to acquire, so the prospect of cheap land for farming may have been a big motivator in both cases.  Many Germans also emigrated for freedom from religious persecution.

Then there are my Irish ancestors, who left Ireland a few years before the potato famine.  Again, I suspect Australia represented the chance for a better life, a chance to own land and improve the family's living conditions.

For whatever their reasons, my original Australian immigrant ancestors made a huge leap of faith to leave their homelands and travel to a distant country, most with little chance of returning to their homeland if their new lives proved less than they hoped.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Australian Coastal Passenger Records 1852-1924

A wonderful new set of records has been made available on Ancestry.  The new dataset of Australian Coastal Passenger Records contains images of passenger registers for ships traveling between ports in Victoria, Australia, and ports in other Australian cities.

Records in this collection may include the following information:

  • Name
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Marital status
  • Occupation
  • Family relationship
  • Nationality
  • Departure port
  • Departure date
  • Arrival port
  • Ship captain's name

Some names may be abbreviated, and children may be listed as "child with" and their parents' surnames. The registers have printed column headings with handwritten entries.

The registers were created by officials working for the government of the state of Victoria.  Laws enacted shortly after the state of Victoria was established in 1851 required ship masters to fill out register forms and submit them to customs officials before departing a port. The lists are formally called "Inward Passenger Lists (Australian Ports)" but are commonly referred to as coastal passenger lists. Beginning in 1924, documentation of interstate maritime passengers was transferred from the states to the Commonwealth.  The original documents are housed by the Public Records Office of Victoria in Melbourne.

These newly digitized records are a valuable record set for many whose ancestors did not migrate straight from A to B.  My Clark family, for example, emigrated from Bristol in England and settled in Melbourne, Victoria.  It took me several years of searching for their immigration records to discover that they actually travelled from Bristol to Launceston, Tasmania, then settled in Port Sorrel, Tasmania for several years.  At least 6 children were born in Port Sorrell or Launceston before the family moved to Victoria and settled in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda.

This new dataset will hopefully allow me to establish exactly when the family moved from Port Sorrell to St Kilda, finally solving a long standing family mystery.  Time to get searching.

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Why Can't I Find My Ancestor's Immigration?

As we research our family history, we all want to trace our ancestors movements, especially when they emigrated between countries.  As an Australian of British and European descent, tracing how and when my ancestors made the journey out to the colony is fascinating to me.  It can, however, be extremely challenging - it appears several of my ancestors might have swum out to Australia!

For a couple of my ancestors, making the assumption that they moved directly from A to B let me astray, in one case for several years.  The family of my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, came from Bristol in England.  They left England at about the time James was born and eventually settled in Melbourne, Australia.  It took me several years of fruitless searching for their immigration details before I widened my search to find the family first arrived in Launceston, Tasmania, which is where James was born shortly after they arrived.  The family spent at least 5 years in nearby Port Sorrell before travelling across Bass Strait to settle in Melbourne.

So why is it so difficult to find some of our ancestor's immigration records?

  • Consider alternate spelling of their name.  The clerk who recorded their embarkation or arrival was unlikely to ask about spelling and just recorded the name as he heard it.
  • If the person travelled in steerage/was an unassisted immigrant/was a crew member who jumped ship, the details recorded about them may be scant or non-existent.
  • Females, children, servants and steerage passengers were frequently left off the passenger lists altogether.
  • Did they migrate in stages?  Not everyone went straight from A to B – some visited other points along the way, sometimes taking years to arrive at their final destination.
  • Prior to 1852, ship's masters were not required to record the names of unassisted passengers travelling from Britain to the Australian colonies.
  • Port Phillip District of New South Wales was established on 10 April 1837.  Victoria was not proclaimed a separate colony until 1 July 1851.  Check NSW records if your ancestor arrived earlier.
  • After 1923 records of people arriving by sea and air are held at the National Archives of Australia.
  • Not all records have survived the passage of time and remained legible.

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

New South Wales Immigration Records Digitised on Ancestry

In partnership with Museums of History NSW, Ancestry has digitised, indexed and published a set of 19th century NSW immigration records held in the NSW State Archives Collection. Never digitised before, these records provide a remarkable range of information beyond traditional shipping lists, about immigrants and the schemes under which they emigrated.

One of the many highlights of the collection is ‘Wages paid to orphans, 1849-1851’. Digitised and indexed, this volume relates to young Irish women who migrated to NSW as part of Earl Grey’s Famine Orphan Scheme between 1848 and 1850. It shows name of orphan, ship of arrival, amount due to orphan from master or employer, amount paid by master or employer into orphan’s account, and amount withdrawn from account and paid to orphan.

Other highlights from this collection that have also been digitised are:

  • Register of applications for assisted passages to NSW, 1884-1887. This register shows the names and locality of the applicant and the nature of the application.
  • Remittance list refunds, 1855-1868. These refunds relate to persons who had contributions to their passage to NSW paid under Remittance Regulations but did not emigrate. Details given include name of nominee, age, name of depositor and reasons for not emigrating.
  • Applications from persons in the colony nominating immigrants, 1857-1858, 1880, 1885-1895
  • Ships’ papers, 1839-1891. These include items such as certificates of arrival, health reports, tenders, lists of immigrants leaving the ship without formal engagements, copies of contracts between immigrants and employers, and matrons’ diaries.

For further information on these important collections, you can visit Museums of History NSW’s website and review the Immigration and Shipping Guide.

Don't forget Ancestry Library Edition is available at all branches of Campaspe Library, either using our public PCs or logging into our free public wifi.

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

I'd Like to Meet...

There are so many ancestors I would just love to meet – preferably with a notebook and pencil, or recording device in hand!  I'd like the chance to chat with (read - interrogate) just about every ancestor, especially ones with blank spaces in their details in my tree, along with every one I've heard an interesting story about - mainly for some verification.   If I could choose just a couple of individuals, they would be the ones who I have found most elusive, the ones who disappeared from the family and turned up in unexpected places – or who didn’t turn up again at all.

I would start with my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, and his parents, John and Ann (nee McGoverin).   James Nicholas Clark was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania in 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  James’s sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.  I would love to be able to question them about why they decided to leave England, why they chose Tasmania to settle, and then what prompted them to pack up and start all over again in Victoria.  Such moves would not have been undertaken lightly, and travel with a growing brood of young children back in the mid 1800’s would not have been easy.  I would have more questions for James’s mother Ann, whose marriage records indicate she was born in Scotland around 1830, as she have for several years been one of my brick walls.  Getting some dates, places and details from this family would be just so exciting.

Another ancestor I would like to meet, for fairly similar reasons, would be Carl Friedrich Beseler.  Known in Australia as Frederick, he was born around 1810 in Hanover, Germany.  He was a shoemaker in Germany and a farmer in Australia, arriving in Adelaide on 1 April 1848 on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany.  Passengers listed were Frederick Beseler, Shoemaker, Mrs Beseler and 5 children.  The family lived in South Australia for 7 years before travelling overland to Victoria, where they settled near Ercildown.  Several members of the family are buried in Learmonth Cemetery.  Again, I would like to know what prompted this family, with young children in tow, to pack up and move halfway around the world, settle in one state of Australia, then pack up and move again several years later.

Finally, I would like a chance to talk to my paternal grandfather, Frank Walter Noble Green.  Frank died when I was just 4 years old, and I have few memories of him, but I would love to know more about his life in England before he and his wife Rosa May moved to Australia (there seems to be a theme here – why did you move across the globe?).  According to family stories Frank spent two years in America prior to emigrating to Australia – what did he do in the United States and why did he then move his family to Australia instead of returning to the States?

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Immigrant Stories

Settling into a new country is not easy. Immigrants have to adapt to an unfamiliar environment and lifestyle, while maintaining aspects of their previous culture and way of life.

Many newcomers to Victoria spent their new lives in limbo, spending months in temporary migrant accommodation, committed to two year labour contracts. For others, settlement has been far easier because they spoke English, or government had offered assistant land or home scheme.

Generations of immigrants have had to adapt to a new climate, new landscape, new language, new currency, and new lifestyle, especially those who have settled in rural areas.

The Australian Immigration Museum has launched Immigrant Stories, telling the immigration experiences of several families as they settle in their new country.  Visit the exhibition online and read some of the stories of those who chose to leave their homelands and in many cases their families and friends to travel to Australia to build a new life.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

South Australia Immigration Records on FamilySearch

Over 200,000 records of those who emigrated to South Australia are available in a new collection on free family history website FamilySearch.
The new collection of immigrants ship papers, dating from 1849 to 1940, contains records of the names and ages of 201,371 immigrants, many of whom were British, Irish or German, and the ships they sailed on. The collection also includes over 6,000 digital images of the papers,  allowing researchers to view more details about the immigrants, including their profession and county of origin.
Immigration record of my Beseler ancestors
Information on images varies but may include ship's name, master's name, tonnage, where bound, date, port of embarkation, names of passengers, ages, occupation, nationality, and port at which passengers have contracted to land. Original records are located in the State Records of South Australia, Adelaide.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

England's Immigrants 1330-1550

The British National Archves has just launched England’s Immigrants 1330-1550, a major new research database.  This work is the result of a three year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) directed by Professor Mark Ormrod, of the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies, who headed a team of researchers based in York at and here at The National Archives.
The British Isles has seen a steady flow of immigrants over the past two millennia. Invasions by the Romans and Normans, sanctuary sought by the Protestant Huguenots, or the need for a workforce encouraging West Indians to immigrate all have had a part to play in making Britain the nation it is today.
Alien poll tax inquest for Northamptonshire, 15 April 1469

The central information is drawn from taxation records. In the mid-fifteenth century, as a response to growing tension against England’s immigrants, a series of alien subsidies were granted by parliament. Other records from the period also survive, including various letters patent on the Patent Rolls, detailing requests for immigrants to remain in England and be treated like denizens.  It reveals evidence about the names, origins, occupations and households of a significant number of foreigners who chose to live and work in England in the era of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death and the Wars of the Roses. 
The database contains the names of a total of 65,000 immigrants resident in England between 1330 and 1550. In one year, 1440, the names of 14,500 individuals were recorded, at a time when the population of England was approximately 2 million.
All of this information has been gathered onto the database providing easy access to complex data for the first time.  The database is accessible to all and is a fully searchable and interactive resource, from which data can be downloaded.

Friday, April 18, 2014

FamilySearch

FamilySearch.org has added an additional 3.7million indexed records of New Zealand passenger records to their existing collection. These passenger lists cover the years from 1839 to 1973. This collection includes both inbound and outbound passengers at various ports in New Zealand and covers the peak migration period of the 1870s. A form of identification was required by all passengers before they were allowed to embark on the ship so these records tend to be fairly accurate (notwithstanding the usual spelling errors and typos of the ship officers who were responsible for handwriting the names into the registers). These records can be searched by first and last name. Access is free.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

19th Century Immigrants to Britain

The records of thousands of 19th century immigrants to Britain are now available to search and download online. The collection, which covers the period 1801 to 1871, includes records relating to more than 7,000 people who applied to become British citizens under the 1844 Naturalisation Act, as well as a small number of papers relating to denization, a form of British citizenship that conferred some but not all the rights of a British subject.
Applicants were required under the act to present a memorial to the Secretary of State at the Home Office stating their age, trade and duration of residence. These papers are now available online for the first time.
They include a rich mix of individuals from across the world, including a large number of immigrants from French and German states, as well as Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Poland, Sweden and the Italian states.

The majority settled in London, establishing immigrant communities, such as 'Little Italy' in Clerkenwell, which still exist today. Many Italian immigrants were ice cream makers, plasterers, confectioners, restaurateurs, and shop keepers, while many German immigrants settled in the East End of London working in the sugar refineries and in the meat and baking trades.