[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Voyage costs

[Jerry Frank]

Randy,

Here is an example of a passenger ticket from 1883 covering steerage passage for a family of 4 for $70.

http://www.gjenvick.com/HistoricalImages/PassageContracts/NorddeutscherLloyd/PrepaidPassage/1883-02-17/SteerageContract/BealleNutchenParty-Front.jpg

I think I have seen others quote amounts in the range of $45 for an adult which included ship and rail travel from Hamburg to Winnipeg.  I'm not sure if it covered Volhynia to Hamburg.

For context, my wife's grandparents migrated to Alberta in 1912 from the Volga region of Russia and entered the country with $55 cash.  Friends on the same ship had $100 cash.

Keep in mind that some came under the sponsorship of immigration companies (such as Canadian Pacific Railways) or of others who had arrived here in the years before them.  For example, my Lutheran grandparents came in the mid 1890s under the sponsorship of a Mennonite family living near Gretna, MB.  They worked for the Mennonites for several years to pay off the fare before establishing themselves with their own land.  These families did not know each other.  It was simply a contract somehow arranged over that long distance, again probably with the assistance of either government authorities who were encouraging the migration or through immigration companies.

I don't know if similar arrangements existed in the States.


Jerry




----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Svenson" <randy_svenson at yahoo.com>
To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 8:23:47 AM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Voyage costs

Does anyone know the approximate cost of the voyage from Volhynia to North America in the late 1800s?  That would include ship and other travel, food and lodging, documentation....  To me, this sounds like it could be very expansive and times for some families in this area could have been very difficult.
 
Randy Svenson
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