I'd Rather Find My Future Partner

This headline on the WorldVitalRecords blog caught my attention:

But no, they are not offering to track down my former girlfriends.

Hours of Unsinkable Fun

Passenger lists from the Titanic are free at findmypast.com for a limited time. No sign of Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet, but I did spot scapegoat J. Bruce Ismay on page 5 of the Southampton list.

The U.S. National Archives has the passenger list from the Carpathia on its website. You'll find Ismay on page 123A of that manifest, along with some other people who weren't accused of mass murder.

A Titanic Omission

Findmypast.com has uploaded a third decade of UK outbound passenger lists, with one important exception.

With the addition of another decade of data to the UK Outbound Passenger lists, records now include an incredible 11.3 million names within 71,600 passenger lists spanning 1890 to 1919.

The only list you’ll find missing for now is RMS Titanic, which we’re saving for the 95th anniversary when the ill-fated ship sank after hitting an iceberg on her maiden voyage on 14 April 1912. But explore now to find details of an earlier, less-celebrated, Titanic.

Immigration Irritation

Megan reviews this week's two big immigration/emigration record releases over at her Roots Television blog. She can't help being nice, even when she's criticizing Find My Past.

I do have a couple of minor gripes, though. Unfortunately, I find that the site doesn't play well with Firefox when it comes to viewing transcripts and images (not without some effort anyway), so it's probably best to use Explorer. That's not a huge deal, but what I really don't care for is the credits/time approach to searching. Mind you, Find My Past is not the only site to use this approach, but it still irritates me.

I agree about the pay-per-view system that European companies have adopted. Short of customer complaints or a UN resolution, I don't think there's much we can do about that.

As for the Firefox-unfriendly websites, my usual solution is a Firefox Add-on called IE Tab. With one click, I can switch between the Firefox and IE rendering engines without switching browsers. I use it all the time when designing webpages, and whenever I run across a stubborn site that refuses to display or perform correctly in Firefox.

One caveat: For password-protected websites (like, say, genealogy sites), you may need to sign in again after switching engines.

A Second-Class Actor

Among the passengers who boarded the SS Olympic at Southampton on July 21, 1920, were Hollywood honeymooners Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Traveling on the same ship, in a less luxurious compartment, was an unknown British actor named Archibald Leach.

In his autobiography Cary Grant recalled the meeting: 'Among the fellow passengers were newlyweds Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford, the world's most popular honeymooners and the first film stars I ever met.

'They were gracious and patient in face of constant harassment, by people with cameras and autograph books, whenever they appeared on deck; and once even I found myself being photographed with Mr. Fairbanks during a game of shuffleboard. 'As I stood beside him I tried with shy, inadequate words to tell him of my adulation.

He was a splendidly trained athlete and acrobat, affable and warmed by success and well-being. A gentleman in the true sense of the word.' [Link]

The passenger list on which their names appear is among those to be digitized and indexed by findmypast.com. Their arrival in New York was recorded here and here.

Coddled Cowhands

The first batch of outward-bound UK passenger lists will be available at findmypast.com on Wednesday, covering the years 1890-1900.

In one, the names of a dozen American cowboys returning Stateside on a liner, the Alexander Elder, from London to Philadelphia, are written in a careful copperplate hand.

Between 1875 and 1914, hundreds of cattleships brought livestock on one-way trips from American ranches to British markets and the animals needed handlers, who often went back on board more luxurious vessels than those on which they arrived. [Link]

Update: No sooner had I posted this than ancestorsonboard.com went live with its search interface. I guess it must be Wednesday already.

Find Your Past at a New Address

1837online.com has changed its name.

Originally named after the date when first English and Welsh civil registration indexes became compulsory, the website has outgrown its former name. Since launching in 2003, we have significantly expanded the range of records offered, with over 400 million records now dating as far back as 1664.

Family historians can search for ancestors among comprehensive collections of military records, census, migration, occupation directories, and current electoral roll data, as well as the comprehensive birth, marriage and death records. The new name better reflects this range and what we can do for you – findmypast.com