Passenger Records: Finding the Proof

 

The Blaising brothers may have said they completed their immigrant voyage in New York City, but finding the proof in passenger records may be another question. Granted, dates of travel may have been estimated, but our ability now to search through digitized records using a date range should ease us around that search roadblock. However, I've yet to find any sign of Henry, Lawrence, John, Philip, Louis, or August, let alone their mother Mary or baby sister Theresa. One would think it rather difficult to hide a traveling family of that size.

The detail of their arrival—whether in 1866 or 1868—tells us that, if they did indeed arrive in New York City, their records would be part of the collection from Castle Garden, not Ellis Island. Castle Garden, also known as Castle Clinton—named after then-mayor of New York City and subsequent Governor of the state DeWitt Clinton—served to welcome immigrants on behalf of the state from 1855 until the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. Thus, whether the Blaising family arrived in 1866 or 1868, either way, if they came to New York City, they arrived through Castle Garden.

While we now think of immigration documentation as the domain of the federal government, at that time it was the state government which oversaw such a procedure. Thus, searching for immigrants in that time period depends on the laws of the time and the jurisdiction.

Though there are many resources for checking passenger lists during that time period in New York, unfortunately, I was unable to locate any sign of the Blaising brothers. In the process, I collected a list of spelling variations of that surname which far exceeded my expectations. Immigration officials were indeed quite creative in their spelling prowess. Even searching for the exact spelling of the surname on the Ellis Island Foundation website, which includes records for Castle Garden, didn't produce any promising results, nor did my attempt at MyHeritage.

While searching for the Blaising records may turn out to be a far more exhaustive search than I had originally envisioned, I also need to recall that, as the FamilySearch blog put it, these Castle Garden digitized resources represent the surviving records from that time period. And even if I do find them, it is likely, given that time period, that there might not be any further personal information given on the travelers than what I've been able to learn from the brothers' naturalization records. We can glean great amounts of information on our ancestors from historic records, but only to the extent which officials of that time period deemed necessary to know.

Their need to know and mine may not see eye to eye.