Europe's Exit Door

A new museum is opening July 5th in Germany called Port of Dreams - BallinStadt Emigrant World Hamburg. It's the mirror image of Ellis Island.

BallinStadt re-creates the world of the emigrants. Who the people were who left their homes in eastern and middle Europe, and why. How they got to Hamburg. What life was like in this last stop before their trans-Atlantic adventure. What happened to them at Ellis Island. Where they went next and how they fared in the New World. Some historians estimate that 20 million Americans may be descended from these Hamburg emigrants. [Link]

Fishing for Men

Steven Rigden spotted a peculiar "fishing fleet" while browsing the UK outbound passenger lists at ancestorsonboard.com.

Reading down the list of names, past Mrs Wright, Mrs Simpson, the infant and ayah (Indian nanny), you come to Miss Max, Miss Cowell, Miss Blyth, Miss Graham… a long sequence of unmarried women, down to Miss Sandys and Miss Good. This is the suspected “[fishing] fleet”: marriageable young women sailing out to India in search of eligible bachelors, preferably the so-called “heaven-born” serving in the Indian Civil Service or officers in the Army. The fleet sailed out from Britain in the autumn or early winter and spent the next few cooler Indian months socialising at the British clubs and angling for a groom.

Unsuccessful women - the “returned empties” - re-embarked for Britain in the spring. [Link]

By the way, passenger lists from 1890 through 1909 are now available.