Unusual Sources

Week 38 #52 ancestors 52 weeks

State Records of South Australia has always been the place to go when looking for information that can verify and extend ones research. A visit to their facility a Gepps Cross requires some planning if one is the use the day productively. Recently, State Records of SA have teamed with FamilySearch to provide access to a range of digitized records.as the website states:

“ We have partnered with FamilySearch to digitise and publish some of our most popular records relating to family history, including passenger lists, school admission registers and social welfare”[2]

Of particular interest to has been the passenger lists and the ships papers. Access to passenger lists have been available in a number of different ways for a number of years. It is the ship papers that make interesting reading. The records GRG35/48/2 are a part of the records relating to official assisted immigration between 1849 and 1885. The first ships record I looked that of the “Caroline” that left Southhampton in December 1854. The cost per passenger on this voyage was 17pounds and 15 shillings [4]. We can see from the records that types of food that our ancestor would have been fed and the number so people who were emigrating at the same time.

The ships papers may provide that evidence you are looking for that a child was born on the voyage or that a member of the family died during the voyage. Each of the ships listed these along with the date of birth or death and the cause of death.

The records also tell us that on this journey that Mr Edward Loades was employed as the school master for the sum of 5 pounds.  A small report is provided in these records about the school during the journey. These ships records done expand on the role of school master. But they have been sighted in other records.

The Ships Records combine with the Passenger Lists and shipping reports from Trove can give us a better understanding of the journey our ancestors undertook.  We know from newspaper articles that The Caroline had experienced difficulties on the journey with a broken mast. Without looking at these records we would never had known that Edward LOADES had been the school master on the journey that he had his family undertook the colony of South Australia.

The ships records are just on of the many digitised records that we can now access to help us understand the lives of our ancestors further as well as to verify those elusive facts.

 

[1]  The history of Herodotus. A new English version, ed. with copious notes and appendices, illustrating the history and geography of Herodotus, from the most recent sources of information; and embodying (14576733817). By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

[2] State Records SA.  https://www.archives.sa.gov.au/content/online-records accessed 23rd September 2018

[3] South Australia Crown Lands and Immigration Office. Immigrants ships papers (deaths and births on board), GRG35_48_2_10_1855-Caroline, 1 Jan-31 Dec 1855. South Australia State Records. Accessed at https://www.familysearch.org .

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] “THE CAROLINE.” South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 – 1900) 26 April 1855: 2. Web. 23 Sep 2018 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49303886&gt;.