Help please - emigration to America/Canada c. 1853

[jillruss]

This is the first ancestor I've found who has emigrated so I'm not sure where to start and what's available online.

Another (wonderful) Rootschatter has found a newspaper cutting which has my gg grandfather George Bishop emigrating to 'America' in 1853. I suppose this could mean either the USA or Canada.

George Bishop was born 1816 in Hedon, East Yorkshire (lived in Keyingham, E Yks) and would almost certainly have been travelling with a woman.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jill

[mortieau]

Hi Jill,
The trouble with locating your George Bishop in the USA at least, is that usually any listing would give his place of origin as just England, and as George Bishop seems to be a fairly common name it's hard to pin down which is yours.

The best bet is the 1860 census, were there are 3 George Bishops born in England, ages 39,40 & 45. Unfortunately the best way to see the full details of each is on Ancestry.com.

Another site is CastleGarden.org which lists passengers arriving in New York

http://www.castlegarden.org/searcher.php

The only  George Bishops here though landed 1848, 1850 & 1860 so don't realy fit your details.

But again Ancestry has a lot of other passenger lists for other ports in the US & Canada.

Good hunting
John

[jillruss]

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply.

I don't have a sub with Ancestry and, without knowing George's port of entry (or even if it was USA or Canada) it would be a very hit and miss (and expensive pay-as-you-go)affair with Ancestry.

I've looked on Find My Past but the passenger lists don't go back as far as the 1850s.

I think your idea re the 1860 census might be the way to go. Assuming it's only available through Ancestry.com - does anyone know if I can pay-as-you-go with pounds sterling?

Ditto for Canada?

What I really need is someone from USA and/or Canada with a sub to Ancestry.com and a heart of gold who can look for George for me!!

Jill

[jorose]

Do you know anything else about him - occupation, for example could help pin down which is him.  Could he have gone under another name? (mother's maiden name, for example?)

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/
 shows two George Bishops in 1870 (freely available) b. England around the right time.
The one about b. 1817, though, has a son who was b. in MA about 1849 (living in MA)
The other, b. abt 1820, living in NY, had a son b. in England, about 1862.

http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ArchivesSearch/Passengermanifest.aspx
 - Boston arrival records, don't see him as George Bishop.

[aghadowey]

LDS Pilot site has lots of records available:
http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=allCollections;r=0

1860 is not complete but you can check to see if the part you want is included.

[jillruss]

Thanks for your replies.

I can't seem to get into the LDS Pilot site. Everytime I try, I get a message telling me that

"You are trying to install Adobe Flash Player on an unsupported operating system."

Then it gives 2 links: one to Flash Player System Requirements, the other to Flash Player Download Centre. Neither work!! I click on them and nothing happens!! Pity, as I would love to be able to access this site.

I'm assuming it's because I'm still operating on Windows Millenium. I had the same problem trying to find a new printer which would operate on Millenium.

Fortunately, John (Mortieau) has looked at the 1860 census for me, there are 3 possibles but none are conclusive.

Jorose, I'm afraid my George Bishop was a mere labourer. His mother's maiden name was Bishop - he was illegitimate. The newspaper extract which got me onto this in the first place stated that George was known locally as the 'Bishop of Keyingham' as he was a self styled lay preacher of the Primitive Methodist church (didn't stop him leaving his wife and children though!).

I now know, from a Bastardy document, that his father was called George Steeple but I'm not sure that my George even knew that. Wouldn't he have had to use his own name when applying for a passport? Or am I being naive? 

I looked on Find My Past and found a passport application for a George Bishop dated Jun 23 1851 but there's one for a George jun 2 days previous so I think that's probably a family. In true Find My Past style - that's all you get, so no help really.

Thanks for the Boston arrivals link - but, no, I couldn't see him either.

George has been a constant thorn in my side ever since I started FH about 5 years ago. For most of that time, I've been searching for a death record for him in England as he just disappears off the radar about 1852. Now I know why, but I still can't find the blighter! 

Jill

[jorose]

What was the exact date of the newspaper extract and how do they word it? It wouldn't have been unusual for the husband to emigrate first, with the intent of finding work and accomodation, and then sending money back for tickets for the rest of the family. It's also not terribly unusual to find cases where contact was lost and the family didn't know where he had gone-- accidentally or on purpose, hard to tell (unless you find him with a new wife in the US, in which case it's probably "on purpose").

At that time, he would not require a passport to travel. Early passports are rare (National Archives says "normally confined to merchants and diplomats"), and your basic emigrant wouldn't have had one.

I wonder if the Primitive Methodist records might have any useful information in them?

[jillruss]

Hi,

I'll see what I can find out about the Primitive Methodists - not sure at this stage if it was even a recognised church.

The date of the newspaper item was June 24 1853 (Hull Packet) and the wording

"..absconded on 3rd June leaving a wife and seven children in a state of destitution. To add to the shamefulness of his conduct he has prevailed upon the wife of a small farmer in the village to accompany him; and she, it now turns out, has for some time past been removing different articles out of the house and obtaining various sums of money from her husband, in order to pay their passage to America."

So, they sailed some time after 3rd June 1853. Whether the woman accompanying him used his surname to give the appearance of being his wife - I don't know. It doesn't help with the 'passage to America' either - obviously no one knew exactly where the couple were bound for! It could have been Canada.

Jill

[caistor_1]

George Bishop is also an ancestor of mine via his daughter Bessey, who married Michael Stephenson, Rimswell 1869. I purchased a copy of his marriage certificate as long ago as 1993 to check who was listed as a father - none, it turned out, so was happy that he was one of the many children of Rebecca Bishop, bapt 27.7.1816, Hedon. I have added little family history-wise until recently when I have a project this winter to get all my vast amounts of paperwork into digital form then post on Ancestry (I''ve taken out a year's subsciption!!) I have thoughts and notes on tracking the family further back, and would like to discuss with anyone similarly interested in this character. There is, of course, the other George Bishop bapt 16.8.1815 Hedon, son of John Bishop and Sarah (nee Farthing) who I presume became the bricklayer and publican in Kings Lynn. I didn't manage to find him in a census pre-1861, so was pondering whether they might be the same person until coming across this story recently. Hope any interested parties might comment...
I have a photo of his daughter Bessey in old age, plus her husband Michael Stephenson, a stalwart of the Withernsea Lifeboat - and a photo of his funeral procession in 1908, coffin borne by men in lifejackets!!