January 17, 2025
Passenger lists are a great genealogical resource. They don’t exist for every immigrant, however. There are few ships’ lists for people who arrived during the colonial period. Even after the Revolution, few records are available for immigrants before the mid-19th century.
During the era of massive immigration from Europe from just after the Civil War until World War I, passenger lists usually exist. There are exceptions, however. For example, San Francisco was one of the major ports for those entering the United States via the Pacific. Passenger lists were kept from 1820, but a fire in 1940 destroyed all the lists before 1893.
James and Fannie Burnett, my second great grandparents and their children came from New Zealand in 1877. Their port of entry was San Francisco. When I learned that there were no passenger lists extant for that period, I was disappointed.
However, with some research, I was able to follow my family’s voyage from Lyttelton, New Zealand all the way to Ogden, Utah. Using journals and newspapers, I filled in the blanks that a lack of passenger lists had created.
Journals and life stories are surprisingly common among those who immigrated. Leaving his/her home to travel to America was a major event in an ancestor’s life. Many of them wrote diaries or journals to commemorate their journey. In the case of my Burnett ancestors, they were travelling to Utah to join the Latter-Day Saints who were already settled there. A Mormon missionary who had been in New Zealand was returning home to Utah. He wrote extensively about the trip and even mentioned various members of my Burnett Family. Many LDS missionary journals are available through the Family Search system.
In addition, my second great grandfather’s older son, John Thomas, accompanied his father and stepmother to Utah. At a later period in his life, John wrote a life history. He was eighteen when he travelled across the Pacific, and his viewpoint of the trip adds to the missionary journal.
To augment the journals, I used newspapers in New Zealand and San Francisco. New Zealand has an excellent historical newspaper archive called Papers Past. It is free and easily searchable. I found an article which listed the passengers aboard The City of Sydney. Among them was the Burnett Family. I also found an arrival article in a San Francisco newspaper. It did not list all the passengers, but it did give more details about the voyage.
Between the journals and the newspaper articles, I learned the date the ship sailed and which ports it visited on its journey across the Pacific. I also learned the exact date of arrival in San Francisco. The journals further supplied details of the Burnetts’ trip from California, describing a trip up the Sacramento River to Sacramento and the final leg of the trip via railroad.
Passenger lists are worth seeking, but other sources can help flesh out an ancestor’s immigration voyage. Don’t give up if you can’t find a passenger list. Be sure to check for journals and diaries. Even if your ancestor didn’t write one, someone else he/she travelled with may have. Finally, don’t overlook newspapers. Most of the ports your ancestor travelled from or to were larger cities with daily newspapers. The papers usually published articles about departures and arrivals.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society