Historic Canadian ship passenger lists go online

Family historians can now access the records of millions of British emigrants who sailed Canada in search of a new life.

The Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935, the originals of which are held by the Library and Archives Canada, contain over seven million names and are being offered by the family tree specialist Ancestry.

Canada was advertised by British colonial authorities as ‘The Last Best West’ in an attempt to draw prospective immigrants away from the American prairies and into the North West territories. Over four million of those names on the list were British people heading for a better life in the colonies.

Many of these early settlers went on to become influential figures and made their mark on the world. For example, Alexander Graham Bell left Edinburgh with his family in 1870, aged 23.

The Bells purchased a farm in Brantford, Ontario and it was from there that he worked on the invention that was to make his name – the telephone. Bell returned to Europe briefly towards the end of his life and is listed on the records on the return journey to Canada in 1921.

The movement became one of the largest scale migrations in Britain’s history and its heyday took place at the end of the 19th Century and lasted until the onset of the Great Depression.

Simon Harper, Ancestry.co.uk's managing director, said: “For the millions of Brits with Canadian relatives, this collection will shed light on the stories of their pioneering ancestors, many of whom contended with incredibly harsh conditions in order to create a prosperous new life for themselves across the Atlantic.”

The passenger lists are indexed by name, year of arrival, port of arrival and departure and ship name. Other details about the passengers reveal insights into their health, religion and even the amount of cash they had in hand when they disembarked.

Serving as a record of the voyage, the lists also contain information on the vessel, the crew, births and deaths and even marriages, which sometimes took place on board and were overseen by the ship’s Captain.

The most popular ports of departure were Liverpool and Glasgow and, as the records show, the voyage to Canada was sometimes not without its perils.

Among the 4,000-plus recorded voyages detailed in the collection was that of The Empress of Ireland, a passenger ship carrying 1,477 people, which was rammed in dense fog on the St Lawrence River near Quebec on the 29 May 1914. She sank in just 14 minutes, drowning 1,012 passengers and crew - a larger loss of life than the Titanic. The Titanic’s rescue ship, RMS Carpathia, is also listed in the collection.

Also included are the details of over 150,000 ‘home children’ who were sent overseas alone as part of the Child Emigration Scheme, a Government-supported programme to aid settlement of British colonies and raise the prospects of orphan and foster children.

These children worked as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants until they were 18 years old and, while some were placed in loving homes, others were exploited as cheap labour. For the descendants of these children, the records will be a first step to tracing their roots back to Great Britain and discovering their lost heritage.

Several famous tourists are also mentioned in the collection, such as Winston Churchill, who spent three months touring North America in the autumn of 1929, and Charlie Chaplin, who arrived in Vancouver from Japan in transit to California in June 1932.

The Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 is available to Ancestry.co.uk Worldwide members. The site is offering a 14-day free trial.