Barbara West Dainton, one of the last two surviving passengers of the Titanic, has died at 96.
Her father, Edwy West, was killed when the vessel sank after striking an iceberg.
Dainton, her mother, Ada, and her sister, Constance, were rescued. They returned to England.
During her life, Dainton said she "wanted nothing to do with the Titanic people," the Encyclopedia Titanica said. [Link]
Irish author Martina Devlin stumbled upon a family secret while scanning a list of Titanic passengers.
Idly running my eye down it, a name and address leapt out: Thomas O'Brien of Bonavie, Co Limerick. My grandmother, Josie English née O'Brien, came from Bonavie. It's such a small townland (near the Tipperary border) that I assumed there had to be a connection between the two.Devlin learned that Thomas O'Brien was her grandmother's uncle, and had boarded the ship with a woman named Hannah—possibly his bride, and certainly pregnant. Hannah survived and gave birth five months later to a daughter. Devlin also discovered the reason for her family's secrecy: Hannah and Thomas' mother fought over who should be considered his next-of-kin and collect compensation from the White Star Line. A letter from Hannah to Tom's sister was less than conciliatory.
"Did Granny have a relation on the Titanic?" I asked my mother. Her forehead pleated. "That's ringing a vague bell," she admitted. "I don't know anything much about it, just that there's a family connection. We knew never to talk about it as children. It upset your granny too much."
"You needn't worry about me. My baby and myself will be alright. I knew ye were all trying to get some money. I produced my marriage certificate, and I had the nearest claim. So you nor the lawyer needn't bother," she said. [Link]
An officer who was supposed to serve on the Titanic's maiden voyage was taken off at the last minute, and took with him the key to a locker in the crow's nest that stored binoculars.
In his haste, second officer David Blair forgot to hand the key over to his replacement and took it with him. As a result, none of the lookouts on board could use the binoculars, despite asking other officers for them.
Fred Fleet, a lookout who survived the disaster, later told the official inquiry that if the crew had had binoculars they would have seen the iceberg the ship struck sooner. When asked by a US senator chairing the inquiry how much sooner, Mr Fleet replied: "Enough to get out of the way."
The 95-year mystery has resurfaced after the key was made available for sale at auction. The key is being sold by Mr Blair's descendants, along with a postcard he wrote to his sister about his disappointment on missing out on the trip. [Link]
Megan consulted with her collaborator Ann Turner about the misidentification of Titanic victim Sidney Leslie Goodwin. Turner says this was not a failure of genetic science but of dentistry. Dentists who examined the teeth of the unknown child ("body number 4") underestimated their age by a few months, thus ruling out their rightful owner. These passages are from the 2004 Journal of the Canadian Dental Association article she cites:
Because of the stage of development of their crowns, their lack of root development and lack of wear, the teeth were tentatively estimated as coming from a child of 9 to 15 months of age
When the mtDNA results came in from the direct maternal descendants of the Goodwin and the Panula children, both had the same mtDNA. As it turned out, their mtDNA is found in over 15% of indigenous Caucasians of northern Europe, indicating that somewhere in the past 2,000 years, the 2 families had a common maternal antecedent. Because of the early stage of dental development of body number 4, however, the Finnish child (13-month-old Eino Viljam Panula) was finally identified as the ‘Unknown Child’. [Link (pdf)]
A Titanic victim identified five years ago as 13-month-old Eino Panula has been reidentified as 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin.
"We were under pressure at the time by the U.S. television team doing the History Channel documentary to identify the child, and based on the evidence we had at the time, we did so," [researcher Alan] Ruffman said.Subsequent tests on HVS2 showed a match with a descendant of Sidney's maternal line, but not with Eino's relatives.
What the scientists didn't fully appreciate at the time is that there are two mitochondrial DNA molecules - HVS1 and HVS2. In 2002, they thought they needed to test only one of them, the HVS1.
Additional evidence for the new identification also resurfaced: a pair of shoes taken from the body of the unknown child in 1912 by a souvenir hunter and kept by his family for almost 90 years were found to be too big for a 13-month-old like Panula. [Link]Update: Megan Smolenyak calls this mistake An Avoidable DNA Error.
An unused ticket for the Titanic first put on public display in 2003 was thought to be the only one in existence, but now an American woman claims to possess one of her own.
Margaret Hallem from Illinois said her Irish grandmother had been due to sail on the White Star liner, but missed the trip due to bad weather.
She was checking up on her Irish roots at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC when she revealed that her family still had the ticket. [Link]
Dee Peters' great-grandmother Matilda Tovey probably made the right decision back in April of 1912.
Her young son, Jack, had suddenly come down with an illness just before the family was to leave for Canada.
Given the sick lad's condition, the prospect of a weeklong sea journey across the Atlantic in third-class was enough for the Toveys to postpone their trip and take the next ship out.
A few days later, they learned that Jack's illness had saved their lives.
"They were all ready to get on the Titanic," says Peters. [Link]
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.
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.
The ashes of Ellen Walker have been scattered over the Atlantic, a year after her death and a few thousand miles from where her supposed father drowned. Walker claimed to have been conceived aboard the Titanic, the child of lovers Henry Morley and Kate Phillips.
Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean—born nine weeks before the sinking and living still—is generally regarded the youngest survivor of the tragedy. It is rumored on a message board that Walker "got in Millvina Dean's face at one point, shaking her finger and declaring "I AM THE YOUNGEST TITANIC SURVIVOR!"The shopkeeper's affair with the 19-year-old Miss Phillips, saw them book a second-class crossing to begin a new life in America.
But that dream was destroyed when Mr Morley, who was married with a family, drowned on April 15, 1912.
Miss Phillips however, was rescued in a lifeboat. And nine months later, in January 1913, Ellen Walker was born.
She spent most of her life unaware of her father's identity, but on discovering the truth, began an unsuccessful campaign to have his name added to her birth certificate. [Link]
Your Family Tree has the latest news on a new U.K. passenger list website promised last spring.
1837online.com has announced it’s launching a new service - Ancestorsonboard.com - which will be rolled out over the next 15 months, with records becoming available to search in the next few months.
Ancestorsonboard.com will open up access to passenger lists from ships departing the UK on long-distance voyages between 1890 and 1960. This will cover routes to the US, Canada, Australia, India and South Africa among others, and include the roster of the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912.
1837online.com estimates there will be around 30 million records available once the scanning and transcribing process is complete – the first records should be available for searching by the end of this year, the project isn’t due to be complete until the end of 2007. [Link]
1837online.com has inked a deal to bring online 30 million records of passengers departing British ports between 1890 and 1960.
This includes the one and only voyage of Titanic, which was made into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio.This should also include records of all those emigrants—like my Finnish great-grandparents—who switched ships in England en route to the United States, and whose voyages did not end with a late-night swim in the North Atlantic.
The estimated 30m individual records include details of emigrations to Australia, North and South America, India and Africa. [Link]
The New York Post reports today that a "scion of one of New York's most prominent and wealthiest families is doing his best to sully his family name."
William "Bill" Helburn Straus, whose great-grandparents, Isidor and Ida Straus, went down on the Titanic, owns and played "Sink the Titanic," once a popular board game, the friend said.
"He'd sit there in his apartment with friends and gleefully play the game," said the friend, who claims she witnessed Straus playing the game. "It was sick." [Link]
