RootsChat.Com

Hello everybody

Just working my way through old posts and tidying up. As some of the information on this post is now out of date. This now is quite definite as the information was taken from the crew agreement which was discovered in the national archives. After each of their names under reason for leaving ship is ( believed drowned ) So any information on the original crew agreement would have come directly from them as they signed on the ship.
In the crew discharge document the surviving French Canadians with the exception of two sign with a mark, given that, they may not even have known how to spell there own names. Names below are taken verbatim from the crew agreement.

Not looking for any new information, just want to put the correct names on the post.


They were Amable Morin: Seaman aged 25, L'islet Quebec, register number 100046
                Samuel Langlois: Seaman aged 28, Quebec, register number 100310
                Joseph Jalbert:Seaman aged 19, Quebec, register number 100012
                Andre Drapeau: Seaman aged 24, Quebec, register number 100033
                Napolean Mercier: Seaman aged 24, Quebec,register number 1056640

Also lost on the Annie Jane other French Canadians never listed anywhere.
                Pierre Chevanelle: Seaman aged 29,register number 99969
                Uhalt Gagnon: Seaman/carpenter, aged 24, Canada. register number 105641
                Elie Levesque: Seaman, aged 24, L'islet Quebec, register number 684021
               

Thanks for that

I had already established that Neil Mackinnon was the COS minister in that period. After a trip to the Isle of Skye and Bracadale to see the bay the logical choice for the minister who helped the survivors was Neil Mackinnon. The Church is there facing you as you come in to the bay with the manse above. Free church was only established in 1843 and is a distance away. The French missionaries were quite conservative so I think they would have mentioned if it was not the established church.
I also walked the route the survivors took from Bracadale to Portree. Luckily did not have to ford any rivers like they had to and it wasn't raining.
So it was a judgement of Solomon in the end, no way of proving beyond doubt.

The hotel turned out to be the Royal hotel in Portree still open for business today. I was lucky enough to find an advertising poster depicting the Ross Royal  Hotel as it was at that time. It is still hanging up close to the reception area of the hotel. I got their permission to reproduce it in the book, so I was delighted with that find.

Thanks again

Allan

Hello everybody

Just to bring you all up to date, the book is out now so the website has been updated to reflect that.
Thanks to all rootschat members who helped with this, given that we had very little or no information to start with; this has now grown into one of the most detailed passenger and crew list of any wooden mid 19th century sailing ship. Well done everybody but let’s try and make it better.
 Some information had been held back till publication for obvious reasons. Just so nobody can accuse me of flogging the book I am putting the direct links on this post. If you could all have a look at it again as all the crew details are there now and every scrap of information about the casualties and the survivors. If you know someone older who does not bother with the internet then take the list to them. The majority on the Annie Jane were Irish followed by Scottish then English. The lists are now alphabetical except the families have been kept in the same order as in the original list; they seem to run from the oldest (head of the family) to the youngest.

Steerage survivors
http://www.anniejane.net/steerage-survivors/ All but nine of the survivor’s origins have been found.

http://www.anniejane.net/steerage-passengers-drowned/ Thanks to a discovery be a rootschat member in Canada we were able to break the passengers up into family groups or if anyone was on a single ticket. The list now reflects that. Makes a lot more sense now.

http://www.anniejane.net/cabin-passengers-drowned/  We now know who every one of the first class passengers were.

http://www.anniejane.net/cabin-passenger-survivors/ Everyone found but the mysterious John Morgan, lots of hits on any search, surname very common. Was in Liverpool for the inquiry so may have been from there.

http://www.anniejane.net/crew-drowned/  We have all the crew who drowned now except for one; an unnamed apprentice. Name, age, location, register number, profession for all deceased crew members. No list ever existed as the names of the dead crew were not given or requested by the press at the time.

http://www.anniejane.net/crew-survivors/ Same again. we now have:  name, age, location, register number, profession for all crew members except one.

Just a brief synopsis for anyone who is unfamiliar with the story. The Annie Jane was a newly built emigrant ship that sailed from Liverpool to Quebec in late 1853 with about 450 people on board. She turned back once to Liverpool after being dismasted, about 80 passengers left although they could not get their money back. She sailed again and was wrecked in the Outer Hebrides on the tiny island of Vatersay on the 28th of September 1853. Up to 350 drowned and there were 102 survivors. The dead were buried in two mass graves “like herrings in a barrel”. The survivors descended on the only house in the island looking for food and shelter, some of them being stuck there for two weeks.
Sadly, the location of the graves has been lost. Vatersay is suffering from coastal erosion and an explosion of rabbits. I am hoping with the raised profile from the publication of the book to do something about that with the help of the local population.
Main site is http://www.anniejane.net/ There is a contact page to get in touch with me with any new information.

Thanks for your patience and a special thanks to all rootschat members for their help. Without you none of this would have been possible. Many of you working selflessly off site to find new information. The acknowledgement page in the book reflects that.
Allan

Thanks for that everyone and sorry for the confusion, a lesson for me there. I have been chastised and accepted as my due. It will not happen again.

I have let Mike know about the thread and asked him to have a look.
I don't have the time today but will look through the posts tomorrow.
Problem is to be definite I need an exact match.

Thanks again Allan

Helllo there

I have posted a question on this family years ago, but just general as I had no idea of the area to concentrate on.
But I have just received this from a gentleman in America.
As a word of explanation I have been researching a shipwreck for the last three years and the book is about to come out, this information is to late for the book. But the website is remaining as a free resource www.anniejane.net This is my obsession to find all of the emigrants who perished aboard so I will keep updating the website as long as I live. The site of the graves two large pits where 350 bodies where thrown in has been lost. Once the book is published I will be focusing on raising funds to find the exact location of the remains.
The letter I have posted below.

Sir, I am very interested in information on this tragedy. I really appreciate what you and others are trying to accomplish. I noticed in one newspaper account that there were seven Gibneys that were feared lost in the disaster. There were four males and three females. Most if not all the names were commonly used first names in my family. I have been trying to discover my roots in Ireland for over sixty years. I have as a result much experience in this type of research. Due to family experiences much family history of my Gibney line had been lost. (house fires etc.) Last year with the release of new church records I was able to put together much family history from Ireland. One thing that I had relied on in previous study of the family history was the memories of my father’s first cousin Peter Gibney. He lived to be one hundred and lived with my Great Grand Parents Thomas and Ann Gibney until about the age of nine. He relayed to me that some of his Great Grandfather’s brothers and sisters may have died on ship on their way over to America. We have never been able to find any of them. The first question I would have is would any of the deceased been from County Dublin. It seems perhaps unlikely but is there anyway to find that out ? Particularly the group of 80+ who boarded late may have heard about the openings that happened as a result of the ships problems. There were seven Gibneys listed as lost. 1853 would have been about the time that they would have left Ireland.


 Lets see if we can find them. Head of the family probably oldest would have been: Martha then William, John, Robert, Margaret, Jane, Alexander. I have tended to find family's listed from youngest to oldest. Don't assume that is all; as infants sharing their parents berths tended not to be listed at all.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Allan