+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ Holland-America Line (HAL) Passenger Lists, at the Boston Public Library (BPL) Microtext Department +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ A JewishGen InfoFile By Donald Campbell Lockhart Appeared in "Mass-Pocha" (Newsletter of the JGS of Greater Boston), Fall 1998, Vol. V, No. 3. Reprinted with permission. Did your ancestor arrive in New York on a Dutch steamship between 1900 and 1940? If so, an important new resource is available to you at the Microtext Department of the Boston Public Library: passenger lists of the Holland-America Line (HAL), which record HAL's ticket sales to customers who embarked from Rotterdam and those who boarded the company's ships in transit at Boulogne, France, and Southhampton, England. The original passenger registers for this 40-year period are filmed on 781 microfiches. An index to passenger names created around the time of the records themselves is reproduced on 272 microfiches. A guide available at the Microtext Department's request desk explains how to interpret the records, which are written in Dutch, and contains an index to both sets of microfiche. The call number for all three items is [Micro HE945.H55P3]. Though the purpose of the registers was to record the income generated by each voyage, they contain valuable genealogical information that is worth seeking even if one has already located one's ancestors in the U.S. Passenger Arrival Lists. From a brief survey of registers at five-year intervals between 1900 and 1940, it appeared to me that a large number of the ticket purchasers had Jewish surnames and given names. In 1905, it is possible that the majority of third-class passengers were Jewish. Background on HAL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the 40-year period covered by the records, 25 different HAL ships carried emigrants from Rotterdam to New York. An appendix to this article lists those ships and their dates of service. Between the turn of the century and World War I, typically three to five HAL ships sailed to New York each month and some held a thousand or more passengers. Due to the war, the number of voyages was cut in half by 1916 and only 11 crossings were made in 1917 and 1918. The number of voyages climbed after the war but never reached pre-war levels. During this period, HAL had only modest competition for the Rotterdam to New York route. Its competitors included smaller-scale operations such as the Russian-American Line and the Uranium Steamship Company. HAL maintained offices in 15 European cities, including Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest, Kiev, Leipzig, and Vienna, and it ran its own hotel in Rotterdam. The hotel was built on Wilhelmina Quay in 1893 and could hold up to 400 guests. The hotel served kosher meals, and signs inside the hotel were written in a variety of languages, including Russian, Polish, and Hebrew. In addition to selling tickets for the ocean voyage, HAL offered "package deals" that allowed the emigrant to book transportation from points in Central and Eastern Europe straight through to small towns in the U.S. The emigrant could travel by railroad to Rotterdam, board an HAL vessel to New York, and continue by rail from New York to other areas of the country. Though an HAL vessel once docked at Boston in 1914, HAL's port of call in America was New York. Nonetheless, HAL attracted many Jewish and non-Jewish passengers bound for Massachusetts. Indeed, it is quite common to see in the passenger registers such popular destinations as Acushnet, Anaronda, Fall River, Gardner, Greenfield, Holyoke, Lawrence, and Salem. Content of the Registers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is one register for each voyage of an HAL ship to New York. The format of the registers and the information contained in them are remarkably uniform over the 40-year period. The first page of each register is entitled "Staat Van Passagegelden" and records the name of the vessel, the port of departure (always Rotterdam), the destination (always New York), and the date of sailing. The second page, entitled "Recapitulatie," records the number of passengers in each of the three classes and the value of th e fares collected. The heart of each register, consisting generally of ten to twenty extra-wide pages, lists the surnames and given names of the passengers who purchased the fares, but not the names of other family members or fellow travelers who were included on the same contract; however, the register does indicate the number of other passengers on the contract. Each page lists 30 to 35 ticket purchasers. The First Class ("Eerste Klasse") ticket purchasers are listed first, fol lowed by the Second Class (" Tweede Klasse") and Third Class ("Derde Klasse") ticket purchasers. Within each class, ticket purchasers who boarded at Rotterdam are listed first and the handful who boarded in transit, typically at Boulogne-Sur-Mer, are listed last. The majority of passengers, and the vast majority of Jewish passengers, traveled in the Third Class. In 1905, the following information is given for the holder of each "Shcheeps-Contract," the contract between HAL and the ticket purchaser. The first column states the serial number of HAL's contract with the ticket purchaser. The second column states the serial number of HAL's contract with the agent who made the booking. The third column, under the heading "Naam Van Den Passagier," states the given name and surname of the ticket purchaser. The fourth, fifth, and six columns, under the heading "Aantal," state the number of full-, half- and free-fares that were purchased with the ticket purchaser's contract. From the data in these columns, one can tell how many others were traveling with the ticket purchaser and one can make a rough guess about their ages. The seventh and eighth columns, under the heading "Pool," contain information concerning HAL's pricing arrangements with other shipping companies. The ninth and tenth columns, under the heading "Geboekt - Van/Naar," state the place in Europe where HAL's service to the ticket purchaser began and the place in the United States where that service ended. The eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth columns, under the heading "Railroad-Order," state the booking number of the railroad passage, the number of tickets purchased, the class of the tickets, and the total price of the tickets. The fifteenth and sixteenth columns, under the heading "Geboekt Door," state the name and location of the agent who booked the passage. The remaining columns list accounting data that are of little relevance to genealogists. However, the final column, entitled "Bemerkingen," is of some interest because it is reserved for miscellaneous comments, which occasionally are written in English. Remarks in this column are infrequent and seem to concern matters such as luggage and return fares. Significance of the Information in the Registers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The name column arguably is the most significant column to the genealogist. The surname and given name that the ticket purchaser gave to HAL may represent a more authentic or pristine version of those names, before they became Americanized. By way of example, my wife's great-grandfather was listed as Pesach Perlow in the HAL register and he became Percy Perloff in the Philadelphia City Directory. Whether or not Perlow is closer to the original, knowing this variant name will help me as I search for records of this man in Ukraine and Moldova. If one's ancestor purchased a "package deal", the ninth and tenth columns may help to narrow the field of possibilities for where that person lived in Europe and where he or she first settled in the United States. Unfortunately for genealogists, the HAL over-land service generally originated in substantial cities, such as Basel, Budapest, Freiburg, Geneva, Insterburg (Chernyakhovsk), Jassy (Iasi), Krakow, Minsk, Posen, Tarnow, Tilsit (Sovetsk), Vienna, Vilna, and Warsaw. In my brief survey of the records, I did not see a single shtetl-size community listed as a point of origin. This was disappointing. On the other hand, the HAL over-land service extended to small cities and towns in the United States, from Gardner, MA, Scranton, PA, and Sheboygan, WI, on down to Greenfield, MA, Calais, ME, and Shennandoah, VA. This will enable the researcher to trace the path of the ancestor who first tried his luck in Lawrence before settling in Boston. The fifteenth and sixteenth columns are of some interest if the ancestor booked a passage through an agent located near home, but many passengers, even those who opted for the over-land service, used agents in Holland and New York. Indeed, a great number of Third Class passengers seem to have purchased tickets through agents in Rotterdam after finding their own way to that city. Locating the relevant HAL register may enable one to find the corresponding U.S. Passenger Arrival List, or vice versa. It is fairly safe to assume that an HAL vessel leaving Rotterdam docked in New York about ten days to two weeks later. The Morton Allan Directory of European Passenger Steamship Arrivals lists the arrivals of all steamships in New York between 1890 and 1930 and it will confirm the exact date that a particular HAL vessel came to port. With that information, it is easy to find the Passenger Arrival List for that ship. How to Access the Registers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is how to access the HAL passenger registers. At the request desk of the BPL Microtext Department, ask for the Guide and Concordances to Passenger Lists of the Holland-America Line, 1900-1940. (The guide has been sent out for binding, but a photocopy of it is available in the interim. After it is bound, the guide may be placed in the open stacks of the Microtext Department). Turn to pages 14-20, which list the 272 index microfiches. Each index fiche typically covers a three-to six-month period of departures and a span of alphabetically arranged surnames within that period; for example, May 21, 1904 - November 26, 1904 (M-S). Find the index fiche for the period you believe your ancestor emigrated and the relevant surname group within that period. Order that fiche at the request desk. In the index fiches, surnames with the same first letter are grouped together. A group of surnames with the same first letter is then broken down by the voyages that occurred in the period covered, listed by ship and day of departure. Following the example above, the first items on the fiche would be the M-surname ticket purchasers who sailed during those six months in 1904, subdivided by the voyages that took place in that period. When you find the relevant surname group in the index fiche, either start lo oking for your ancestor at the beginning of the period or, if you know it, go to the month or week when your ancestor emigrated and start your search there. If you know the name of the ship and approximate date of departure, so much the better. Unfortunately, though surnames beginning with the same first letter are grouped together, they are not arranged alphabetically by the remaining letters in the surname. Thus, a Posner may be listed before a Perloff. The entry in the index will give your ancestor's sun ame, given name, contract number, and the name of the vessel and date of sailing. With this information, return to the guide and turn to pages 21-39, which list the 781 microfiches containing the actual passenger registers. Locate the relevant fiche and order it at the request desk. Each actual register fiche generally contains one or two register books. (Beware that a register book may begin at the end of one fiche and resume at the beginning of the next fiche). Find the first page of the register book for the voyage you are interested in and then go straight to the Derde Klasse, where your ancestor is likely to be found (you can always try the other two classes if you are unsuccessful). The Derde Klasse may take up more than a dozen pages, but with your ancestor's full name and contract number you should be able to find him or her in short order. Happy hunting. Appendix ~~~~~~~~ The following is a list of HAL vessels in service from 1900 to 1940 and their dates of service: Amsterdam 1887-1905 Edam 1921-1954 Leerdam 1921-1954 Maasdam 1889-1902 Maasdam 1921-1941 Nieuw Amsterdam 1906-1932 Nieuw Amsterdam 1938-1974 Noordam 1902-1928 Noordam 1938-1963 Pennland 1939-1941 Potsdam 1900-1915 Ryndam 1901-1929 Rotterdam 1897-1906 Rotterdam 1908-1940 Spaarndam 1890-1901 Spaarndam 1922-1939 Statendam 1898-1910 Statendam torpedoed Statendam 1929-1940 Veendam 1923-1953 Volendam 1922-1952 Warzawa 1920-1926 Werkendam 1890-1900 Westernland 1939-1943 Zaandam 1938-1942 Sources ~~~~~~~ "Guide and Concordances to Passenger Lists of the Holland-America Line, 1900-1940". Lisse, The Netherlands: Municipal Archives of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and MMF Publications, 1995. "Morton-Allan Directory of European Passenger Steamship Arrivals". Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1987. Schaap, Dick, and Dick Schaap "A Bridge to the Seven Seas". New York: David McKay Company, 1973. --- NOTE: See related InfoFile on this topic: "Holland-America Line Passenger lists 1900-1940" . -------------- [01Aug99wb]bik Copyright 1999 JewishGen Inc. http://www.jewishgen.org +----------------------------------------------------------------------+