Big Find 1: In my search for the good ship Helvetia, I was sailing on storm-tossed seas until I encountered TheShipsList. What a bountiful resource that turned out to be.
I’ve had a deepsea plunge through what’s offered there, and best of all, in the deepest water at the bottom of Resources Links page are “Email Discussion Lists.” (Thank you, Sarah.)
I subscribed to the one that offered discussion opportunities on immigrant vessels and put out my query. Others on the listserve were quick and generous in responding with what they knew: about the metalling of hulls, about life at sea, on ports where the Helvetia was registered, on the ship’s rigging and number of masts.
Big Find 2: Heritage Quest through my on-line King County Library System. In the 1860 Census, for some strange reason I could not find Michael Harm via name search. I knew he was in Cleveland at the time, and even his address.
So I took the slowpoke, painstaking approach. I compared Michael’s address with an old map to determine which “Ward” he lived in. (The 1860 Census was broken down by Ward.) I browsed page by page through the 1st Ward Census data, and sure enough, I found him. On the 1860 Census, my greatgreatgrandfather’s name is Michael Hiram. He was living at the time with Uncle John Rapparlie, scrawled out on the census as something like Raferlu, though I have yet to find the listing via name search. But there they all are. And the tenants and workers in Uncle John’s wagon building shop, too.
So let’s see, we’ve got Michael Harm listed in various places as: Michel Harne, Harm, Hann, and Hiram. And his bride as Elizabeth Crolly, Crolley and Crowley. But it’s par for the course. Don’t even get me started on how many ways there are to spell Gebben.
4 responses to “What a find”