Lately I've been volunteering to index digitized historical records
that the Mormons are collecting and making available for everyone
to search for their roots. I helped index the 1940 census and now
I'm working on Passenger Ship's List from 1880-1940s. Interesting.
Who knew that just looking at a list of names, dates and places
could tell you so much about different people who immigrated
to America in hope of achieving their dreams and future goals.
As I type in the names and birthplaces, they become real to me.
Here's a Jew from Russia with his wife and children sailing across
the sea from Liverpool, England to reach family already here and
waiting to aid the rest of the family in making a new life, finding
work, building homes, helping establish this land called America.
One Polish man was 78 and immigrating to New York to join family.
Others were just infants or children. Some had occupations like
laborer or miner or shoemaker, grocer or butcher or housewife.
Each important in their own way, a part of history in the making.
(Photos from www.clipart.com)