Tracking details of a ship arrival

By patiently going through, column by column, a relevant time-frame for the arrival of a ship in South Africa it is sometimes possible to put together a detailed account of her history from the moment of her embarkation until reaching her destination.

In the case of the Jan van Brakel, a Dutch emigrant ship, we find a report in the Natal Mercury of 23 June 1859 of her arrival at Simon's Bay (Simonstown in the Cape) on her way to Natal:

Then there is a reference on 14 July to her 'standing off the port' (Durban) and in some danger as a result - she had lost both her anchors:

There follows a mention, on 21 July 1859, of her lying at the outer anchorage off Port Natal. A long wait aboard after a lengthy voyage from Holland for her cargo of immigrants (given variously as 75 or over fifty).

Reading each separate report as well as the shipping column once she had officially arrived at Durban we find she had left Amsterdam on 15 March, so her voyage lasted four months.

Finally we find an advertisement published prior to her departure, homeward-bound:

The press had a few tries at the Captain's name but appear to have finally settled on De Roever.

Shipwrecks, passenger lists and newspapers

While the earlier local press is an invaluable source for material on shipwrecks, as well as for passenger lists (though not always accurate or very detailed) the difficulty in Natal papers is that the originals have not been digitised. 

Some microfilm copies exist e.g. at Killie Campbell Library, but it is extremely hard to search for a chance reference to an event recorded on microfilm as an entire page cannot be scanned by the eye while searching. It is so much easier to tackle the original newspaper pages, especially as one gradually becomes familiar with where the shipping columns, for example, are placed in the paper so one doesn't necessarily have to plough through an entire edition - with all its distracting and irrelevant avenues.

Original Natal newspapers going back to the earliest Natal Witness, Natal Mercury etc are held in the Pietermaritzburg (Msunduzi) Library, previously the Natal Society Library. Serious researchers are allowed to peruse these though obviously you need to know which edition to order up. Some are in poor and fragile condition, though strangely enough the earlier the better as paper quality decreased as the years advanced.

Nevertheless, it would be ideal to preserve the originals whatever their condition and the best method would be to scan them digitally, This is not a priority in the present Natal and one wonders if it ever would become so. Few of the powers-that-be would consider the copying of a lot of colonial newspapers at all important. And so the originals will eventually become unusable and a great resource will be lost. Scanners of the size required are very expensive and whoever is using them needs to know what they're doing. Perhaps the Mormons might look on our plight with favour?

Meanwhile we can only look on in envious awe at online e-newspapers such as the Australian Papers Past or Trove, all free to access, searchable and wonderfully clear to read. It is something to set as a goal for our own newspapers - or is it an impossible dream?

More on Natal Immigration

1879 was the year of the Anglo-Zulu War, and the Natal Land and Immigration Board reported a downturn in the number of incoming immigrants 'owing to the disturbed state ' of the Colony. Later in the year arrivals increased to a monthly average of 31 souls, the total for the year being 287. Additionally, applications had been received for 340 more persons, of whom 72 had arrived up to mid-February 1880.

J E Methley was sent to England to select about 40 families for agricultural settlement in 1880; this group became known as the Willowfountain (or Wilgefontein) settlers. Further information is held in the European Immigration Department records at Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository.

Walter Peace took over as Natal immigration agent based in London and during 1880, according to the Natal Mercury, brought out 200 immigrants. The newspaper commented that in May 1880 the URMS African had arrived at Port Natal (Durban) from England carrying 60 immigrants - 20 men, 10 women and some children. 'The men are carpenters, blacksmiths, farm labourers, engineers, gardeners and joiners, and the women housekeepers and domestic servants. We have to thank Mr Walter Peace ... for such a large and respectable class of immigrants as landed at the Point yesterday. Mr Reid of the Immigration Depot ... boarded the African for the purpose of looking after those who were arriving here under the Immigration Act' and the immigrants were safely landed at the wharf.

'Some friends of the immigrants were present, but there were some who found themselves on a foreign land without those who required their services being there to receive them.' (The immigrants had already been engaged by prospective employers in Natal.) Accommodation in tents was available for the reception of such settlers, but 'in no instance was a poor stranger allowed to enter the tents; those who had found friends kindly looked after their less fortunate fellow passengers, and in a short time they were all distributed throughout the town in boarding-houses.'

By 1887 more than half the white population of Natal, then totalling about 36 000 and predominantly English-speaking, were living in the two largest towns, Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

For passenger arrivals at Natal between 1845 to about 1910, original registers are held in the Archives of the European Immigration Department (EI) at Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository.

There is a surname index to the registers (not online): a local Natal researcher could check this index, going to the original volumes if an entry is found and providing digital copies or a transcript. Alternatively, access the LDS Family Search site at www.familysearch.org/ and, under the Family History Library Catalogue section, see the list of available films on Natal immigration; films can be ordered at a Family History Centre near you.

UPDATE: www.eggsa.org/arrivals/eGGSA%20Passenger%20Project.html  Access to learn more about the eGGSA Passenger List Project now. (2012)

The original Natal passenger registers are a valuable source, but the lists are not all-inclusive at any period. Generally, with the approach of the 20th c factors such as increased volume of shipping, inconsistent record-keeping or lack of preservation of records, may militate against finding certain arrivals.

Passenger lists - even in the original registers - often contain inaccuracies; spellings of surnames vary, handwriting may be difficult to read etc. Newspaper shipping columns may offer passenger lists which do not tally with the Port Captain's lists.