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I'm working on figuring out which ship my great-grandfather came across, and there doesn't seem to be a record of it on the major indexes. So I'm wanting to do a research trip and look at the National Archives to see what I can find. The problem is, their records are indexed by port, not by date. I don't know what port he came across, but I do know the following:

  1. It was not New York.
  2. It was likely in the mid-Atlantic region.
  3. He departed from Sweden, although there might have been another stop off point, as there often seems to be.
  4. He likely sailed around April 1912.

Of these, it is only the last point that seems to narrow things down any at all. What would really help me narrow down my search is to see a list of what ships sailed from what ports to the United States in 1912, perhaps including the port and date of departure, along with the port and date of arrival. I'm hoping to narrow my search down to just a few ports to look at the indexes, otherwise I'm in for a long day... Any suggestions on where I might find such information?

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  • I suspect that http://www.theshipslist.com should form part of your search, but I suspect you are probably already aware it from @JanMurphy's answer to your linked question. – PolyGeo Dec 22 '14 at 23:14
  • I've looked at that site, and I don't see a straightforward way to get what I want from there. Maybe it's hidden somewhere I can't find. Hmmmm, worth looking some more... – PearsonArtPhoto Dec 22 '14 at 23:16
  • I did not mean to imply that there was an easy way to get what you are after from there, just that it is a key resource for ship details and passenger lists, that should not be overlooked. I have a feeling that by 1912 there may have been a large number of ports, ships and especially voyages across the Atlantic so I do not envy you searching without knowing the ship. – PolyGeo Dec 22 '14 at 23:54
  • I was lucky and we had a family record of what ship the family sailed on. But I encourage you to make a complete a picture as you can about your great-grandfather's life in the USA so that you can work backwards from there. FAN group / cluster research is essential here, since it might give you a clue to his fellow passengers. It is impossible to predict exactly what clue will be the catalyst, so you have to look at everything. Few people immigrated alone, and most families had someone in the family who made multiple trips. On what basis are you ruling out the Port of New York? – Jan Murphy Dec 23 '14 at 00:58
  • P.S. I fixed the broken link to the Immigrant Ships Transcribers' Guild in the linked question. – Jan Murphy Dec 23 '14 at 01:01
  • I found the 12 ships my ancestors came to Australia on between 1849 and 1880 partly through family stories, but also newspaper articles that sometimes had passenger lists and I found that obituaries often mentioned the ship that brought them too. – PolyGeo Dec 23 '14 at 01:44
  • I wonder if a tighter title of something like "Lists of ships arriving in US Atlantic ports by date in 1912?" might help get a few more keywords into the search engines. – PolyGeo Dec 23 '14 at 01:58
  • Only 12 ships... I've probably got far more than that... I can name a few of them, but I can't even trace all of them back to when they arrived in the United States, so... – PearsonArtPhoto Dec 23 '14 at 03:14

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