If your ancestor hunt has run aground at dockside, you find American Passenger Arrival Records, A Guide to the Records of Immigrants Arriving at American Ports by Sail and Stream to be a great help.

This classic work was written by Michael Tepper and 1988 and was revised and updated in 1993. It has recently been reissued with expanded coverage of colonial emigration records, guides to aids and reference materials, National Archives microfilm programs and publications, current projects and new developments in immigration research, pertinent books and periodicals and changes in locations of archives and documents.

If you have a question about passenger list research, this volume is considered the definitive guide to finding the answer. If, however, you already know which ship your ancestor arrived on , Ships of Our Ancestors by Michael J. Anuta may add some valuable information to your family file.

This is not a genealogical sourcebook but rather a compilation of photographs of the steamships that were employed in transporting immigrant to this county in the hey day of mass migration. It was on board the very ships pictured here that immigrants traveled in “steerage,” crossing the Atlantic in conditions of extreme discomfort and peril.

These were the propeller-driven, steel-hulled leviathans of legend, owned and operated by such famous shipping lines as North German Lloyd, White Star, Cunard, Guion, Red Star, Inman and Hamburg-American, and in their groaning steerage compartments they transported an ocean of humanity to an uncertain future in America.

How wonderful to see the ships that were the very center of the European exodus in photographs! How intriguing to think that from the crowded decks of these awesome vessels countless thousands of families embarked on their American odyssey.

It is amazing that photos of so many of these old ships exist and it is to Mr. Anuta that we owe thanks for doggedly tracking them down and ultimately assembling them in this pictorial narrative.

The complete photographic archive of nearly 900 ships is arranged alphabetically and each ship is further identified by date, shipping line, and source.

As genealogists we seek confirmation of an ancestor’s migration in documents and passenger lists, but these photographs provide evidence of a different sort. Here there is visual testimony of the great passenger ships that grew old in service and then passed from the scene without a trace. They are proof of a bygone time and our connection to it. Check your libraries for these two books or if you want them for your own reference library, they may be purchased from Genealogical Publishing Company, INC. at 1001 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, 410-837-3897.

The Tepper book is a 144 page paperback which retails for $14.95. Ships of our Ancestors is a 380 page, indexed paperback with a price tag of $34.95. Shipping and handling is an additional $3.50 for the first book and $1.25 for each additional one.

DOES ANYONE KNOW …

… Frann Risher Smith Clark (

frannc@beci.net

) is looking for the descendants of NAOMI C. JOHNSTON and WILLIAM G. KING JAMES who lived in the Jasper and Clarke County areas in Mississippi. William was born in Alabama in 1857 and died in 1929 in Mississippi. Who were William’s ancestors? Are there any descendants still left in the are? Can any reader help?

… Kathy Porter Wenthold (Kingston, Oklahoma;

texkathy1@aol.com

) is looking for her great grandparent, ERASMUS REESE PORTER and SUSAN ADALINE CLARK who lived in Winston County, MS. She has found information on Susan’s line, but can find nothing on Erasmus. They apparently moved to Arkansas around 1900. Are there any descendants living in Winston County now? Any information about the family would be greatly appreciated. Does anyone know this family?

Please send your announcements and queries to FAMILY TREES at 900 Main Street, Natchez, MS 39120 or email to

Famtree316@aol.com

. All queries printed free of charge.

We look forward to hearing from you!