This from the current Ancestry Weekly Newsletter..........
(Added Later : Warning! With a couple of exceptions later on in this article, the web links aren't working, which is weird, as this is a straight copy and paste from the Ancestry Newsletter.)
With DavidWW's permission alternate site addresses have been added.... Frances
USING ANCESTRY.COM: “U.S.-Canadian Border Crossings,” by Juliana Smith
Billed as the “Maple Sugar Capital of the World” on its website, the
city of St. Albans, Vermont http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0amI0FU
Alternate site address:www.stalbansvt.com/
is nestled in a valley between the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain, through which the U.S.-Canadian border runs. When family historians first
hear about the records of St. Albans’ District Border Crossings, they
might think it an obscure collection of records from that border
town, but in fact, the St. Albans District encompassed most of the
U.S.-Canadian border. This past week Ancestry released a new
collection of 4 million records which contains border crossing
records from the St. Albans District.
You can see a list of the ports included in this release in the
database description - http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0amG0FS
Alternate site address:www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/default ... o_it=30774
Ancestry will be posting more U.S.-Canadian border-crossing records
in the future as well.
WHERE ARE THE EARLY YEARS?
Since many of our ancestors came to the U.S. through Canada in years
prior to 1895, it would be great if this database included earlier
records. I know of at least one of my families (those famous Kellys)
made their way to the U.S. via Halifax. Unfortunately, until 1894,
records of immigration through Canada to the U.S. weren’t recorded.
In fact, this actually added to the appeal as many immigrants avoided
immigration screening and hassles by choosing the Canadian route. In
1895 the U.S. government closed this loophole by requiring Canadian
steamships and railroads to complete manifest forms and only provide
transportation to U.S. destinations to immigrants that would have
been allowed to enter the country via other U.S. ports.
WHAT’S IN THE RECORDS?
A variety of records are included in this database, including
manifests, Primary Inspection Memorandums, Records of Registry, and
Land Border Departure Records. The depth of information collected in
these records varies. Some manifests are rich in detail, while later
manifests, including some created by airlines http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0an40FA
Alternate site address: http://www.content.ancestry.com/iexec/? ... 3a7858%3a0 will be leaner with
many only containing a first initial and surname, along with the date
of arrival and point of embarkation and disembarkation.
Many of the records are on Form 1-Canada, titled "List or Manifest of
Alien Passengers Applying for Admission to the United States from
Foreign Contiguous Territory" - http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0anW0Fj
Alternate site address: www.ancestry.com/s30776/t6650/rd.ashx
and will include full name, age (with columns for years and months), and gender; marital status; occupation; literacy; nationality, and race or people; last permanent residence (city or town and country); name and complete address of nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came; final destination and whether they had a ticket to their final destination; by whom the passage was paid; how much money was in their possession; whether ever in the U.S. prior to this trip and if so, where; whether going to join a relative or friend and if so, who (including name and complete address); causes for deportment (including mental and physical health conditions); physical description; and place of birth
(city or town and country).
Whew! Thank heavens for paperwork! These records are on two pages, so when you find someone and view the image you’ll have to page forward to see the second page.
It’s important to note that before 1 October 1906, only non-Canadian
immigrants were recorded. Canadian-born immigrants are only included
on records created after that date.
On the Primary Inspection Memorandum cards, the print is small and
can be hard to read, although on the cards I viewed, the handwriting
was legible. To help decipher the headings on each field, I checked
out the National Archives website description of some of these records
http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0amK0FW
Alternate site address: http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/immig ... ivals.html
It included a description of what was asked on these cards, as well
as other records found in this database. Using this page I was better
able to decipher the field headings that I found hard to read on the
images.
WHO IS IN THESE RECORDS?
Searching by nationality proved to be interesting. There is a drop-
down box with sixty nationalities that are represented in the
database. The top ten were:
-- English - 898,713
-- French - 417,160
-- Scotch - 385,206 (Yes, it says “Scotch” in the menu, rather than
Scots or Scottish. I’m assuming they chose this spelling because it
is the way the records I viewed recorded the ethnicity.)
-- Irish - 279,654
-- Hebrew - 169,484
-- German - 162,178
-- Italian - 92,468
-- Polish - 90,868
-- Russian - 82,494
-- Finnish - 67,540
Noting that only 19,662 records came up for “Canadian,” it struck me
as odd. However, when searching for only a birthplace of Canada, I
got 1,021,583 hits. Searching for both birthplace of Canada and
nationality of English, I get 298,172 hits; French, 280,331; Irish,
135,159; and Scotch, 132,359. An assortment of other nationalities
rounded out the Canadian-born people represented in the database.
So, for this database, you can use place of birth as a more reliable
search term, and as with any database, start wide and then narrow
your search by rotating various criteria in and out of the search
boxes.
Some of the records don’t even list nationality or birthplace, so you
may rule out a possible hit by specifying one.
Since there are a variety of search options that can be used to
search the different records included in this database, it is a good
idea to keep track of your searches using a spreadsheet or log like
the one we discussed in my 4 March article, “Why Can’t I Find Them in
the Census?” http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0amL0FX
Alternate site address: http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/a ... icle=11654 Just
replace the census search fields with the fields listed in the border
crossing search box.
WORLD TRAVELERS
Even if your family was firmly planted in the United States by 1895,
it wouldn’t hurt to search this database for your family names. I
found a “List of United States Citizens”
http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0amM0FY while searching for
my family names. For this search I would use a state name rather than
country. I entered United States under country of birth (6,272 hits),
U.S. (28 hits), US (1,100 hits), and America (79 hits). However, when
I entered New York in the location of birth field, I got 27,131 hits.
More than all the U.S. variations combined.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
For more information on these records, see the following resources:
“By Way of Canada: U.S. Records of Immigration Across the U.S.-
Canadian Border, 1895-1954 (St. Albans Lists),” by Marian L. Smith
(Prologue, Fall 2000, Vol. 32, No. 3)
http://email.ancestry.com/cgi-bin13/DM/ ... HHn0amN0FZ
Alternate site address: http://www.archives.gov/publications/pr ... rds-1.html
This is a must-read article that not only provides a good description of the
records but also tells us how to follow-up with related documents that can be found in U.S. and Canadian archives.