Every so often the Library has visitors who are interested in finding evidence that a family member traveled via steamship during a certain time, to/from a certain place. One of our many unique resources from the archives helps to solve this mystery: passenger lists.

In our MS0015 Steamship Ephemera Collection, our volunteers have worked hard to catalog 371 passenger lists from the vessels of 58 steamship lines with voyages that range in date from 1878 to 1988. Many of these lists include the voyage date, the port of departure, the ports of entry, and, of course, passenger names. Other lists also include the names of the captain and his crew, sailing schedules, route maps, and general “housekeeping” information for passengers.

Here are some interesting examples that you can expect to find in this collection:

Beautiful covers:

Bremen MS15.14353 Lady Drake MS15.02231 Waesland MS15.16867

Lists of passenger names:

Merion MS15.00647 Canada MS15.04185

Logs and Maps:

Orotava MS15.17307 Kaiserin Auguste Victoria MS15.08855

Finally, there was a personal favorite of mine:
This is the list for the S.S. Vega which measures in at 2 3/4” by 3 7/8”!

Vega MS15.18037

As always, you are welcome to drop by the Library to see our passenger lists from the Steamship Ephemera Collection for vessels from A-W! (Not ‘Z’ since we have lists from Acadia to the Western World) Also keep in mind that if you can’t make it in, just contact us to order a PDF version of the passenger lists.