Ancestry Magazine

Passage to America 1851-1869: The Records of Richard Elliott, Passenger Agent, Detroit, Michigan
By Mary Lou Straith Duncan. The Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, Inc., 1999. 194 pages. Softcover. Order at www.dsgr.org.

Passenger Agent, Richard R. Elliott (1832-1908), ran a foreign exchange and ticketing office in Detroit, Michigan, from 1848 to 1891. A ticket request was usually initiated by someone in the United States who wanted relatives to immigrate to the United Stat es. Therefore, Elliott’s records connect families from their overseas homes to specific places of settlement in the Midwest, primarily Michigan. Among other duties, Elliott arranged passage for some 11,000 emigrants by 1868.

Emigrants were of all nationalities. In 1867, Elliott’s record showed that 75 percent of emigrants were from Ireland, England, and Holland. Scotland, Belgium, Germany, and Poland were also represented as well as a few French and Bohemian voyagers. Elliott’s fourteen volumes of passage and exchange records are in the manuscript collection of the Burton Collection of the Detroit Public Library. Passage to America copies the postings in one volume–the account book of arranged passages.

The content in Passage to America offers more than 5,000 entries and a detailed explanation of emigrant shipping practices of the time. The book is fully indexed. An entry might lead to correspondence that identifies the ticket buyer in the United States, the address in the sending country, and the names, relationships, and ages of all persons for whom a ticket was purchased.

The People Detective: Discovering Your Family Roots
By Tom McGregor. HarperCollins UK, 2002. 230 pages. Softcover. $11.95 plus s/h. Order at www.trafalgarsquarebooks.com.

Museum curator Tom McGregor hosted the BBC series, The People Detective. This is a companion book to the series. It does not profess to be a how-to on British genealogy (its opening chapter recommends hiring a professional genealogist), but it looks instead at remarkable and often astounding ancestors.

One subject in The People Detective is Mary Bateman, the alleged Leeds witch who was put to death in 1809. The newfound family (traced forward by genealogists engaged by BBC) held Mary’s skull almost 200 years later. An equally startling story is of missionary James Chalmers, who was killed and eaten by cannibals at the turn of the century. His relatives were flown t o New Guinea where they interviewed descendants of the tribal members who had performed this atrocity. A few of the stories refer to somewhat related records, i.e., court and immigration. Others weave social and period customs into the story. The saga of fashion model Gloria (1905—1941) is a case in point. Her admittedly sparse genealogical record is enhanced with the story of the growth of consumer culture, illustrated by the development of London’s famous department store, Selfridges. You won’t learn to do British family history from these pages, but you’ll have a lot of fun reading them.

Settlers of Maryland 1679-1783, Consolidated Edition
By Peter Wilson Coldham. Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 2002. 902 pages. Hardcover. $75.00 plus s/h. Order at www.genealogical.com.

James Magruder, Jr. acquired two tracts of land in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The first 200 acres at Lost Jacket was patented in 1747. Nineteen years later, in 1766, a James Magruder, Jr. took up 857 acres at Magruder’s Plains. Are these Magruder men one in the same?

The answer is not in Settlers of Maryland, which catalogues the Magruder grants among some 29,000 other first purchases of Maryland property. But the all-important clues are included: the citations that may lead to the answer among surveyors’ descriptions and the names of the tenants of surrounding plantations.

These research aids come from records created by the land grant process: the warrant, certificate of survey, and patent. Without this new roster, countless hours would be spent searching an assortment of obscure original sources or examining each of the five volumes consolidated by this book. Instead, these pages deliver the information necessary to locate the original records. When supplemented by the publication of Gust Skordas (covering 1633 to 1680), researchers have access to 150 years of land grants for first purchasers in Maryland.

Gu ide to the Manuscript Collections of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, First Edition
Edited by Timothy Salk. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2002. 728 pages. Softcover. $24.95 plus s/h. Order at www.NewEnglandAncestors.org.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society possesses an extensive and remarkable collection of genealogy materials, including a valuable manuscript collection. But this resource, which was started in 1845, has been underutilized by family historians. The manuscripts range in size from a few pages of a family Bible or a diary, to twenty-three boxes of genealogical data or several volumes of church admissions and sacraments.

This Guide to the Manuscript Collection provides the title, author or corporate name, call number, and other commentary of some 5,500 entries for manuscripts catalogued in the NEHGS collection as of April 2002. This represents 50 to 75 percent of NEHGS’s total collection. Typescripts appear first, followed by large collections, then individual items (letter or legal), then oversized typescripts. The relevance to research prospects is clear from the annotation for each entry. An index of names includes surnames that appear in secondary titles or in the body of the entry. Subjects and place names are indexed. The introductory pages give policies for accessing and using NEHGS manuscript collections, explain the NEHGS acquisition policy, and explain that subsequent editions are planned.

Naval Pensioners of the United States 1800-1851
By Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck. Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 2002. 222 pages. Hardcover. $30 plus s/h. Order at www.genealogical.com.

Between the founding of the Continental Navy in 1775 and the formation of the Navy Department in 1798, naval pensions were funded by the individual states. A series of acts from 1799 to 1851 transferred the responsibility to the federal government.

These acts are explained in Nava l Pensioners of the United States 1800-1851, along with commentary on the intent of the laws versus actual practice. Interesting historical notes are included, such as how the early federal naval pension fund was to come from the government’s share of money obtained by selling the prizes captured at sea by American vessels. A chart shows that 1,228 pensions were granted by 1851 to invalids, widows (beginning 1816), orphans, and privateers. The bulk of the book identifies the pensioners and the years in which there are entries for the pensioner in the reports to Congress. Personal information may appear, and an index identifies persons named within entries who are not the original naval pensioner.

Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, FUGA, a genealogical and historical lecturer and researcher, is the editor of FORUM Magazine and co-editor of The Archives and the revised edition of The Source.