Archives of Canada - Immigration Passenger Lists 1865-1922

I saw an article the other day (I think it was in Dick Eastman's Newsletter) about an immigration passenger list offered by the Canadian Archives.  Since my Italian grandfather initially immigrated to Canada before he came to the US, I decided to check it out to see if I would get lucky - I was having a lot of luck lately and felt confident.   I guess I've been spoiled by the explosion of online indexes that we have today on both free and subscription sites, because I was a little disappointed  at this Canadian Archives database - It is not indexed by name.

I feel a bit guilty that I was disappointed.  Once I got over it, I dug in and started searching for my grandfather.  While there is no by name index, you can search by the name of the ship, year of arrival, port of arrival, shipping line and port of departure.  You can also search by date of departure and date of arrival.  If you know some of this information, you can narrow your search a bit. 

For my grandfather I only new two things: first, that he arrived in Canada sometime in 1900-1901; and second,that he departed Italy from the port of Naples.  The port of departure didn't work for me because these ships carrying immigrants from Europe made many stops along the way and sometimes in this database the port of departure is the last place they picked up passengers.  So I was left with only narrowing my search to the potential years my grandfather arrived.  Let me tell you, it didn't narrow the search very much.  I ended up with 734 manifests to scroll through.  I have to mention that when you input any search term, the results will be displayed first by ship name and then by port of arrival and date.  While you can search this database from the comfort of your own home, you are still left with doing it the "old fashion" way...going through the data page by page.

I wish I could report here that I found my grandfather and solved all sorts of family mysteries, but I can't.  I guess my real disappointment is because I have been so lucky lately and now am left to slog through 734 manifest images.  However, I discovered awhile back that the chase is almost as fun as the success!  I'll let you know if I find anything.  By the way, I am very grateful that the Canadian Archives put these records online - this will be a great resource for a lot of people.