Showing posts with label
steerage passengers not named.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
steerage passengers not named.
Show all posts
Apparently a routine visit of the Conch to the small port of Knysna was deemed worthy of mention in the shipping columns - no captain is given, but it would have been too early for Bell so perhaps Humble or Bosworth was in command. Interesting to note that the ship Drumore, which had departed Falmouth on 4 August, brought 32 men and women and 18 children, none of them named (as was usually the case for steerage) - you can lose a lot of ancestors like that ... These steerage passengers were likely on their way to New South Wales, not remaining in South Africa. A chance to track their progress via the Cape is lost to descendants because of the lack of identification.
Table Bay by Thomas Bowler
December 9 1846 - Arrival of Flora from Table Bay, bound for Port Natal
Passengers
Major and Mrs Cooper and Servant
Lieut Burrel
Mr and Miss Burrows
Messrs
Bird
Zeederberg
Moodie
Stafford
Turner
Chisholm
Clink
Meintjes
2 Van Zyl
12 Men 45th Regiment
1 Steerage Passenger
November 1846 - Arrival of Apprentice bound for Port Natal
[This early - for Natal - passenger lists demonstrates how military arrivals are limited to the number of ordinary soldiers i.e. rank and file, though officers may sometimes be named. You can lose a lot of ancestors that way. Also that steerage passengers - whatever their race, colour or creed - were usually not named; neither were 'servants'. This particular passenger list is taken from one of the original handwritten registers, not from a local newspaper shipping column. Neither source is ever 100% reliable.]
