Passengers make waves on internet

Last Modified: 28 Mar 2008
Source: PA News

The complete set of passenger records for Britons who travelled by long-distance ocean liner between 1890 and 1960 have gone online for the first time.

Fascinating details of voyages made by famous stars including actors Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, film director Alfred Hitchcock and playwright Noel Coward feature in the archive, alongside records of ordinary people's departures for a new life in Australia in the 1940s and 50s.

The commercial venture by family history website findmypast.com, in association with the National Archives, has taken a team of 125 workers more than a year to complete, digitising 164,000 original passenger lists from long-distance voyages.

In all there are 1.1 million pages now on the internet which list 24 million passengers.

Highlights include a sailing by the Normandie from Southampton on November 5, 1938, which carried Vivian Leigh and Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Anna Neagle and Noel Coward to New York; the Titanic's passenger list for its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912; and Elizabeth Taylor's journey to New York with her American parents in 1934.

Parts of the archive have been online since last year but the addition of records from the 1950s now marks the end of the project.

Commercial director at findmypast.com, Elaine Collins, said: "The availability of the passenger lists from ships that left British ports in the 1950s is an invaluable tool for people tracing relatives they believe may have left the UK during this period.

"The passenger records may very well provide a missing link for many family historians who have hit a brick wall in their research, as well as helping those outside of the UK to trace back to their British and European heritage."

The National Archives' Dan Jones added: "These records were previously only available on site at the National Archives and we hope that digitisation will open up a hugely valuable resource for genealogists and social historians all over the world.

"Digitising our records ensures that we can make our most popular holdings more widely accessible, whilst ensuring the preservation of the original documents for future generations."

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