[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] British passenger lists going online

[Paul Rakow]

    Todays newspapers have reported that the British passenger lists are 
 being put online. They start in 1890, at present just the years 1890-99
 are available. They plan to have all the lists (1890-1960) online by
 early 2008. 

    The lists are useful for ancestors for Russia, because a lot of them 
 emigrated via Britain, taking a small ship across from mainland Europe to
 Britain, and then sailing to the new world from one of the major ports, 
 such as Liverpool or Glasgow. These "Aliens" aren't covered in as much 
 detail as the British emigrants, but finding the ship and date would 
 be a great help in finding people in the US or Canadian passenger 
 lists. 

    This will be a great help. Up till now the only way to use them
 was to visit the British National Archives in Kew, and you needed
 a pretty good idea of port and date because there was no index. 
 I've been to Kew and found several ancestors the hard way, but now 
 it should get much easier. 

    You can search the index for free, but will have to pay a few pounds
 if you find a list you want to look at.  

     The searchable index is at 

 http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/

    A National Archives leaflet explaining the passenger lists is at: 

 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/rdleaflet.asp?sLeafletID=292
 (look at section 16). 

                Paul Rakow
                rakow at ifh.de
                Liverpool