South African Ancestry Research Q and A 3

Q  When did my ancestor arrive in South Africa and on which ship?

A  Passenger lists are not a good starting point. Organized emigration schemes are well-documented but if your ancestor paid his own passage as an independent traveller his arrival may remain invisible. Registers which have survived are not all-inclusive and are rarely indexed; steerage passengers are seldom named. It’s impossible to speak in terms of a national database of SA passenger arrivals or departures: no such source exists. Very few passenger lists are available online: someone has had to transcribe these from original registers held in archival repositories or from newspaper shipping columns. Those transcribed or otherwise captured so far remain the tip of the iceberg.

British Board of Trade records are available online from 1890 via findmypast and other sites. These may be helpful if your ancestor's surname was unusual, for example, enabling you to identify him or her on a passenger list. If his name was John Smith you will have some difficulty. Some approximate idea of a date of departure or port of destination is useful. By far the largest preponderance of names were going to US rather than to SA. A recent search for an Irish lady turned up hundreds of examples of her names - forename and surname - but only two of these were going to South Africa, the rest to US ports.

Rather than pinning your hopes on finding your forebear on a passenger list, focus on whether he eventually died in SA. If you fail to find a relevant deceased estate file, look for any other likely reference on the index: a divorce, an application for employment or even a mortgage bond. Be imaginative in your search terms. 

Emigrants boarding steamer 

Emigration from Scotland to South Africa 1858

From the CALENDAR OF ANNANDALE EMIGRATION, SCOTLAND
March 4 1858:

Free Emigration to the Cape of Good Hope

All the Dumfriesshire and Galloway emigrants who are registered for the first vessel for Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, must be at Annan on Friday 12 March ready to embark on Saturday morning 13 March for Birkenhead. The undersigned will attend at the Kings Arms Inn, Lockerbie, on Friday and Saturday 5 and 6 March between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. for the purpose of receiving the deposit of one pound under the Emigration Regulation 20.

Sgd: William CARRUTHERS - Emigration Agent for the Cape.

Emigration to the Colony of Natal in the 1860s

Colony of Natal: Emigration and Land Grants Under Government Authority.

Entrance to the Bay of Natal, Bluff on the right, Point on the left,
with a sailing ship arriving.

The Colony of Natal is situate on the south-east coast of Africa, looking into the Indian Ocean, 800 miles beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and 6 900 miles from England.

It is in the 30º south latitude, and has its winter in July, and its midsummer in December. The winter is nearly as warm as an English summer in the middle of the day, but it has cool nights. The mean temperature of the year is from 64½ to 68º. Thirty inches of rain fall during the year, principally in the summer season. The winter is bright, dry and sunny. The elevation of the land varies from the sea level to 6 000 feet.

The Colony is about one-third the size of England; it contains 17 000 square miles and has a population of 17 000 Europeans and 170 000 native Africans. It possesses a fertile soil and a beautiful and healthy climate, and has an abundance of good pasture land.

Sugar, coffee, and arrowroot are grown in the coast districts, where the orange, pine-apple and banana ripen abundantly in the gardens. The hill-districts furnish good dairy-farms and grazing-grounds and grow wheat, oats, barley and other corn and root crops such as potatoes, beet and turnips. Indian corn grows everywhere; and tobacco in most places. Cattle, horses and sheep thrive in the uplands. The Colony has only been occupied by the English since the year 1842. But there are, nevertheless, now 300 000 cattle, 20 000 sheep and 17 000 horses on the pastures and about 6 000 tons of sugar are exported in the year.

The Colony affords an excellent field for the enterprise of practical agriculturists, who have a little means to start with, and who have a family to settle. But no one should go to it unless he has enough money to provide for himself until he can bring his land into cultivation and yielding, and unless he knows how to till the ground and manage stock and the dairy. The Colonial Government furnishes assistance and countenance to men of this class; but discountenances all other kinds of immigrants. Just now the Colony has as many artizans and handicraftsmen as it requires; and clerks, shop-men and persons trained to the learned professions, cannot find remunerative employment.

To men who have the requisite knowledge and skill, who pay their own passages, and who possess a capital of ₤500, or a sufficient yearly income, the Colonial Government gives a free grant of 200 acres of selected land, with a reserve of 200 other acres adjoining, which may be bought for 10s an acre, at the end of five years. Actual occupation for four years is required before the land is finally transferred in freehold.

Pastoral runs of one thousand acres in extent may be hired from the Government on eight years’ lease, at a rental of one penny per acre per annum, under the condition of actual occupation and stocking, the Government reserving to itself the right to terminate the occupation of any portion of the runs, by giving 60 days’ notice at the end of any one year, and allowing a fair sum for permanent improvements. These runs are purchaseable by the occupier at any time in the open market.

A limited number of approved men of smaller means, who know how to turn the land to account, and who can provide for themselves and their families until the land yields them sustenance, are sent out with assisted passages under arrangements that have to be considered and settled beforehand. The settlers get free grants of 50 acres of good land, with right to surrounding commonage, receive passages by Government ships on payment of ₤6 per statute adult to the Government Emigration Board, 8 Park Street, Westminster, in London, and are assisted at the lowest possible charge to themselves to get conveyed to and settled upon their grants.

The charges of first-class passages by sailing ships is 35 guineas for each adult but passages may occasionally be had for less, under special arrangements.*  The payments for these have to be made to the owners of the vessels, or to their agents, and not to the Government. The voyage averages about 65 days by sailing ship. It is made in 40 days by the mail steamers.

For further information application may be made to the special Immigration Agent of the Colonial Government, Dr Mann, at the Natal Immigration Office, 15 Buckingham Street, Strand, London.
July 1867.

Extract from Natal Almanac & Yearly Directory 1867.

* The cost of a steerage passage from British ports to Natal was from ₤12 to ₤15. An ‘intermediate’ passage could be obtained for between ₤20 and ₤31. Cabin passengers could pay between ₤30 and ₤50 depending on port of departure (London, Liverpool, Plymouth, Southampton or the Clyde ports).

Why did the ancestors emigrate?

What motivated our 19^th c ancestors to emigrate from Britain or from other parts of Europe? I refer to voluntary emigration, not transportation to penal servitude or escape from religious persecution. Family historians generally accept the standard reason: the wish for a better life. That sweeping phrase covers a multitude of factors including greater opportunities for employment, prospects for personal advancement, perhaps even financial enrichment, a more secure future for the emigrant and his children. Some simply sought adventure.

It’s hardly surprising that they wanted to leave. The population of England had grown from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1851 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million: the sceptred isle was becoming a little crowded. Europe’s population doubled during the 18th century from about 100 million to 200 million and during the 19th century increased to about 400 million.

Most of the population in the period after the Industrial Revolution was concentrated in the cities where living conditions for the vast majority of people were poor and diseases such as cholera, typhus and smallpox were rife. But the greatest and most insidious killer of all was tuberculosis which by the late 19^th c accounted for approximately 40% of deaths of the urban working-classes. It appears, often disguised by the terms phthisis and consumption, on innumerable death certificates.

My search for something – anything - on an obscure figure in the family tree finally turned up his Natal death record: cause of death, consumption. The date was 1883, only a year after TB was recognised as an infectious disease (resulting from the work of Robert Koch). What was significant was that this person had arrived in Natal not long before he died: clearly his physical condition had played a role in the decision to emigrate. It was believed that removing to ‘a more salubrious climate’ would help. By this stage, however, the disease had taken a firm grip on the man and he died at the age of 37 leaving a wife and six children.

Note: there was no effective treatment for tuberculosis until the development of the antibiotic Streptomycin in 1946. Despite more recent forms of medication, TB continues to kill people worldwide.
See TB statistics at http://www.tbfacts.org/tb-statistics.html

Voyage to Natal, South Africa, 1850

WILLIAM LISTER'S VOYAGE IN 1850 : Taken from his 'Recollections of a Natal Colonist', written ca 1905
William Lister was born on 1 March 1828, in Pentrich, Derbyshire, England, where his father and grandfather were tenant farmers of the Duke of Devonshire. He explains in his own words what moved him to go out to South Africa: 'The motive which induced me, at the age of 22, to emigrate to the colony then known as Natal ........ was the glamour which all new countries seem to call over the enterprising youth of the British Isles, prompting them to seek their fortune in the colonies of England.'

On the 10th of October 1850, I sailed from Liverpool in the brig Wilhelmina, Jasper Robbins, master, for Port Natal, in South Africa. It was known then as Port Naytal [sic]. The registered tonnage of our little ship was 168, her burden or carrying power about 200 tons. We managed, by hauling sometimes close to the wind to clear the Irish Channel, the Bay of Buscay [sic] was negotiated, with the North East Trade wind we sailed merrily on till caught in the doldrums near the equator. Our passengers numbered about ten, five or six young men, and Commander Maxwell, Mrs Maxwell, three boys and one little girl, besides two or three servants. We could scarcely have wished for a pleasanter captain than Robbins, and he was only some seven or eight years senior to the young fellows in the cabin. Of course we were provided with guns and rifles and other murderous weapons useful or otherwise, as well as saddlery and the usual impediments emigrants supplied themselves with in those days. In fine weather we often amused ourselves with shooting with a pea rifle at a bottle towed astern of the brig. Owing to the bobbing about of the bottle on the waves it was a very difficult mark to hit. Little Tom Maxwell broke the bottle at his first shot, whereupon Captain Robbins declared he must shoot no more, for he said he would spoil that shot.

The Wilhelmina was a good sea boat, but by no means a good sailer and unless the wind was free, she made a god deal of leeway. However she quite outsailed a little Dutch brig we fell in with somewhere about the Line. The Dutchman chalked up his longitude on a board. This longitude was evidently computed by 'dead reckoning' and very Dutch at that, for it required considerable correcting. However we parted the best of friends after the usual enquiries and sea going courtesies. The brig seemed lightly laden but I think the old skipper made us understand he was 52 days out from Amsterdam bound for Callao, and I presume turned in for a big smoke and possibly a drain of schnapps.

Near the latitude of the Cape we had for two or three days a north west gale of wind. Robbins decided to scud before it under close topsails and jib. The little brig rode well over the mountainous waves and she was carefully steered, for had a wave come over the poop it would have swept the decks clean.

But the finest specimen of the captain's seamanship was off the South African coast. A white squall from a cloudless sky, providentially off the land, came suddenly down upon us with studding sails set. Of course all hands were on deck immediately. Robbins himself took the wheel, and gave his orders sharp and clear, had studding sails and booms hauled on board and in due rotation royal top gallant topsail, foresail, ditto on the main mast spanker, jib and flying jib were all stored and handled without the loss of a spar or a bit of canvas.
We made a fairly good run from Liverpool and saw no land until I think between Mossel Bay and Algoa Bay. Then that awful current which flows down the coast from the Mozambique channel caught us, and without a good westerly wind, progress was out of the question. New Year's day dawned upon us, 1851. It was Captain Robbin's 80th birthday and was duly celebrated.

January 7th the Bluff was sighted. The pilot came over the Bar in a whale boat, the anchor was dropped, the sails were furled, and the good ship Wilhelmina, after waiting a tide or two crossed the Bar under full sail, drawing about 12 feet of water. We soon bade adieu to the little brig, her gallant captain, her mate and second mate, cook, steward, and the crew of six sailors before the mast, thankful that our voyage of 88 days had been so much more pleasant and prosperous than the voyages of many immigrant ships which had been landing passengers in Port Natal, during the previous 12 to 18 months. Contrast this with the magnificent Union Castle steamers which now cross the Bar with 27 feet of water under their keels; so much for breakwaters and persistent dredging.

Extract from William Lister's memoirs provided by Jennifer Southorn.

Emigrants on board during a storm.

When did my ancestor arrive in SA and on which ship?

This is the most frequently asked question in South African family history research. It’s also one of the most difficult to answer. To begin with, it depends on the ancestor’s point of departure: was it Hamburg or some other port in Europe. Did he sail from a British port? And during which decade?

If your ancestor embarked at a British port after 1890, outward-bound passenger lists are now online at findmypast

These lists exist from 1890-1960 and originate from Board of Trade records held in BT 27 at The National Archives, Kew. Destinations include Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Canada and USA.

Online access to these passenger lists is a valuable resource: there were no indexes to the original registers, many of them were fragile and took time to search. As they were arranged monthly by port of departure it was necessary to know an approximate date of departure and the port to have any hope of finding an ancestor. The online facility is a gigantic step forwards.

However, 1890 was the start of the final decade of the 19th c and the great era of British emigration to South Africa began much earlier, in the second decade of that century.

There are two points to bear in mind:

1. If an ancestor was part of an organized emigration scheme, there is a good chance of finding out more about him – or about them, if the entire family emigrated together.

2. If an individual passenger wasn’t part of an organized group but paid for his own passage and was free to settle in whatever part of the country he chose, his arrival is usually less easy to trace.