In July we announced the major revamp of our web site, Online names designed to assist family historians make links with others with similar surname research interests. Now we can announce that the companion web site, formerly part of Online names, but now a completely separate entity, Emigrants is now fully operational.

Emigrants is designed to allow family historians to make contact with others with a shared interested in emigrant passenger lists. Like Online names it is a searchable database compiled from public submissions. It has been available since 1997. The upgraded site has been available since July and the many new features now available are attracting increased traffic to the site.

The concept of listing surnames of emigrants or emigrant vessels on this site is based on the basic reality in family history that the information you seek is probably already known to someone else. Your problem is finding that person and this site is designed as an aid to that search.

The site has two types of postings:

1. Seeking: this is a list of persons seeking emigrant passenger records for their ancestors. This is primarily a list of surnames many with the name of the emigrant vessel.

2. Holding: this is a list of people holding passenger records that they are prepared to share with others OR they may know of a web site with passenger records. This is a listing of the names of emigrant vessels. Many of these people have undertaken research and have located a passenger list for their own family and of course such a list names many other emigrants.

• Australia – arrivals
• Germanic states – departures
• Italy – departures
• North America – arrivals
• Scotland – departures
• United States – arrivals

Like the guideline pages at Online names these pages are continually being added to with new information.

We hope you and your associates will soon avail yourself of the service because the success of such a web site improves with the number of postings. The more postings, the more likely visitors will get a positive result.

[Ed: The above sites were closed in 2015 after repeated cyber attacks and the information pages transfered to the Adelaide Proformat site.]

Missing census records in England and Wales

Have you ever wondered why you cannot find your ancestors in a 19th century census return for England and Wales? Perhaps the following lists may explain.

Most of the information from the 1911 census for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man has been released. However the most sensitive data will be unavailable until January 2012.

There are missing pages in all censuses but 1861 has suffered most, with entire pieces missing. You can confirm most missing pieces in The National Archives Catalogue by searching on keyword 'missing' and series code as follows: