To See it With my Own Eyes

 

What is it about documents for family history? Somehow, I can't just accept that someone else saw it, or transcribed it, or referenced it. I need to see the thing for myself. And that is simply not happening for Nicholas Snider, the second great-grandfather I'm seeking on my mother-in-law's family tree.

Granted, the man was likely born in in the mid-1760s and made his trip from Germany to a very young United States of America in the early 1800s when record-keeping was not our nation's bureaucratic strong suit. Whatever records might have survived—if even required to be taken, much less kept for centuries—would certainly not be of a format we'd expect today.

Though I had already read reports, thanks to Ancestry.com, that Nicholas had arrived in 1804 on the ship Fortune, I wanted to see the actual passenger list. So naturally, I was excited to learn that there was a digitized collection at FamilySearch.org called Pennsylvania Landing Reports of Aliens, 1798-1828. I was not so delighted to learn the collection—all 636 images—is not searchable. But you can browse.

From the transcription, I noticed that the Nicholas in that ship's entry had traveled with Anna, presumably his wife, and a five year old son named Jacob. Their surname was spelled Schneider, no surprise for a family traveling from Germany, although our Nicholas' family eventually went by the more English spelling, Snider or Snyder. Along with Nicholas' entry in the passenger record were entries for two unnamed children, aged three and one, who were marked as dead.

But were these the entries for the right Nicholas Schneider family? That was my impetus for finding the original record, in case any other information might have been provided. In addition, slight changes to details I had found—such as Nicholas' wife's name being Anna Elizabeth, which doesn't fit a middle initial "M" from the transcription—urge me to find more information.

Whether I have the fortitude to last through all 636 images in the collection, I can't yet say. I suspect, given the size, I'll find a spot which is safely within the date range of that 1804 transcription, and go page by page through that section. And hope. The FamilySearch wiki entry for the collection doesn't give much more guidance; sometimes you just have to turn the pages for yourself.