Years ago, I discovered my ancestors on an 1853 
passenger list. I didn’t read any other names.
Later I did.
It turned out that there were other relatives on the manifest. The family immediately after the ancestral family was the niece of the father and her family. Twenty entries before the ancestral family was the married daughter and her small child.
Read the entire passenger manifest. Think about the names.
There may be more there than you think.
People like to travel with others they know when they can.
8 Responses
I’m finding that out, or they lived in another close town or city.
Always, always examine every name. People move, serve, work, & die in clusters!
On the manifest of my husband’s ancestors I found one of my ancestors, they were from the same village.
Same thing happened to me, My grandfather came from Italy with his mother and siblings, but I didn’t see his mother listed! It was only later that I learned Italian women used their maiden names. When I looked again, there she was, hiding in plain sight.
Great point and I can add do the same thing when examining the Census data. I found my grandmother age 12 when I was looking at my grandfather’s data. She was 12 and he was 17 and living with his uncle working as a house painters. I had not found my grandmother on the same census because she was living with her mother and brother at her grandmother’s house and they were all given the last name of the grandmother. My grandmother and grandfather lived on the same street- a few houses apart. (He married her the year she turned 18!)
I am trying to find all my ancestors on my pedigree charts on ship’s passenger lists. One great uncle was supposed to have left Russia (German-Russian) on the same ship as his future wife. By concentrating on her name I located the ship record recently added to Ancestry (Canadian Crossings List) but upon looking at every name on the manifest, I did not find my gr uncle, so still looking for him and I know that “family story” isn’t true.
Look at people with the same occupation (e.g. baker) – they may be related.
That’s a good reminder.