Kalyn Loewer, Manager of Digital Collections, walks participants through two of the NYG&B’s online collections: Colonial Immigration Records and Shipwrecked Passengers Bound for the Americas. This session is part of the NYG&B’s new online series, Collection Close-Ups, in which Kalyn explores a selection of our many online collections, explaining what you can find and how you can search.
Colonial Immigration Records contains genealogical information and biographical sketches of immigrants to New York during the Dutch and English colonial eras. Some of the volumes featured in this collection include:
- Colonial Immigration Records from The NYG&B Record
- Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630–1674
- Papers Relating to the First Settlement of New York by the Dutch Containing a List of the Early Immigrants to New Netherlands, 1657–1664
- True and Authentic Register of Persons Who in the Year 1709 Journeyed from Germany to America or New World
Shipwrecked Passengers Bound for the Americas, 1817-1875 was researched and transcribed by NYG&B Fellow Frank A. Biebel in 2013 from newspaper accounts and, in some cases, passenger lists from the port of departure that were submitted to immigration authorities in New York. The collection mainly covers shipwrecks of European ships traveling to the United States, although some ships to Canada and other countries are included. Most of the 339 ships covered in this collection were wrecked and did not make it to port.
For those that survived, these records serve to document the story of a unique and rare immigration experience; for those who died, the records serve as a particularly tragic death record. In either case, a discovery here will become a poignant story worth telling.