Castle Garden Search Tips
by Dan Lynch
The following are observations which may be helpful
to those searching the CastleGarden.org passenger archives.
In this example, I was attempting to locate one or
more passengers believed to have sailed from Ireland for New York sometime
in the early 1870s. Their names: Mary Lynch (mother and daughter, same
name), Ellen Lynch, Eugene Lynch, Daniel Lynch, and Bridget Lynch.
You’ll certainly have your own elusive ancestors,
but for now, let’s isolate one passenger – Daniel Lynch - so you can understand
how to mine the data in the castlegarden.org archive.
Searching for LAST NAME = “LYNCH” results in 12,666
records. In some online archives, you could then isolate a subset
of this number by using FIRST NAME STARTS WITH “D” and then simply evaluate
the many variations that result. Since the castlegarden.org site does not
offer any advanced conditional operators (e.g. – starts with, contains,
sounds like) tied to the first name or last name fields, you will need
to be diligent to uncover all possible alternatives.
From experience, I conducted searches for:
First Name is
|
Last Name is
|
Yields
|
DANIEL
|
LYNCH
|
183 records
|
DAN
|
LYNCH
|
21 records
|
DANL
|
LYNCH
|
0 records
|
D
|
LYNCH
|
0 records
|
DANIEL
|
LINCH
|
5 records
|
That’s a total of 209 results. Then I went back to
the 12,666 generic LYNCH arrivals (with no first name specified) and sorted
the list by first name. I quickly noticed that some entries were
for “A LYNCH” and others for “A. LYNCH” (note the period). Using
this clue, I tried again:
First Name is
|
Last Name is
|
Yields
|
D.
|
LYNCH
|
17 records
|
DAN.
|
LYNCH
|
2 records
|
DANL.
|
LYNCH
|
17 records
|
That’s an additional 36 results, bringing the total
to at least 245 records.
This same concept will impact your search for many
other first names – Edward, James, Patrick, William, and many others.
Tip: Use the
SteveMorse.org BROWSER tool to browse
all possible first names for the last name you are interested in.
The browser will let you jump ahead or back any number of frames making
this task much easier and less time consuming.
Names With Spaces
If you are searching for a last name that may contain
a space or special character, be sure to submit searchers for each of the
various alternatives.
Examples include:
Last Name
|
Results
|
DITOTA
|
7 records
|
DI TOTA(with space)
|
15 records
|
|
|
DIGIOVANNI
|
299 records
|
DI GIOVANNI
|
341 records
|
|
|
OLEARY
|
143 records
|
O LEARY
|
68 records
|
O’LEARY
|
809 records
|
First Names Preceded by “S” or “D”
While searching the castlegarden.org files, I have
observed some common first names preceded by an S or D as part of the name.
Matching gender, it appears this may have been an abbreviation used by
some workers to signify “Daughter Mary” or “Son John” (written and transcribed
as DMARY or SJOHN).
In addition to adding this to your list of alternate
searches, you may wish to use the stevemorse.org browser and scan the results
sorted alphabetically by first name. Get into the habit of looking at both
D and S even if the name you’re looking for is a common one.
Ages Exceeding 100
The castlegarden.org archive contains many passengers
with ages listed well in excess of 100 (many more than 900 years old).
Many of these results (but not all) show Occupation as “Infant”.
One theory is that a 700 year old, 800 year old, or 900 year old was instead
a 7-month, 8-month, or 9-month old infant. This, of course, does
not explain the 600 year old Laborers or those with other occupations.
Net comment – use caution when using age as a filter.