Passenger lists: the example of Anglo-American marriages

On 27 April 1885, Alice Brereton (née Fairchild) returned to America with her family. The Aurania’s passenger list includes her British—born husband and their three children. From information contained in the list—name, age, citizenship, and occupation—we can reconstruct aspects of the family’s history revealed in other public documents.

Alice was born in a small town in upper New York State in 1852, the daughter of a jeweler. Her husband, born in 1833 in a small village in Norfolk, England was the son of a clergyman. Both families seem to have valued education. Robert trained as a civil engineer. In 1870 we find Alice attending school far from home in San Francisco. It is there that she likely met and married Robert. Their first child was born in the city in 1875. However, three years later they were in Hereford, England. Their second and third children were born in England. Robert made trips to the United States in 1876 and 1877. In 1885 the family apparently relocated permanently to America. A fourth child was born in Montana in the same year. The 1910 US census shows a household comprised of Robert and Alice, their youngest child, and a daughter-in-law and a boarder, both from Minnesota.

The above is an example of the kind of research in family history undertaken by hundreds of thousands of people each year. Popular interest in genealogy has generated a level of demand for information from public records, much of it monetized, far beyond what could have come from professional researchers. The result has been a dramatic improvement in online access to scanned images of original records held in public archives. Digitization has focused on producing indexes by name and basic demographics, allowing individuals to be traced across different sets of records.

My interest in the Brereton family, however, stems from research into Anglo-American marriage patterns using passenger lists for Liverpool to New York crossings. The database includes 342 family groups of two or more members, including at least one American, traveling Cabin class. These were drawn from 15 crossings from 1854 to 1856, 22 for 1875, and 27 for 1885. All were spring crossings from Liverpool to New York drawn from the US National Archives and Records Administration database, New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.

From 1854 to 1856 and in 1875, mixed nationality family groups, mainly Anglo-American, accounted for 12% of all groups including Americans. In 1885, the figure was somewhat higher at 16%. Most mixed groups were based on intermarriage between Americans and non-American (mainly British) citizens. However, the pattern of intermarriages changed over time. In the 1854-1856 period, over 70% of intermarriage groups involved American men marrying non-American (mainly British) women; in 1885, just over 70% were based on American women taking non-American (mainly British) husbands. In 1875, 55% of intermarriages involved American men; 45%, American women.

An off-the-shelf explanation for the change in pattern is that in the 1854 to 1856 period, mixed groups were the result of naturalized Americans, now established in their new country, “retrieving” wives and families from Britain. In the 1880s the popular image of Anglo-American marriage was of well-off American women marrying much less well-off British aristocrats and gentry. In the first instance, there is no evidence in the passenger lists since naturalized Americans are not distinguished from native-born. Regarding the second, the occupational evidence does not fit the pattern. The British husbands in 1885 are diverse group: civil engineer, contractor, merchant, stevedore (in cabin class!), and two identified as “gentlemen.” The history of the Breretons is informative because in contrast to the popular image of elite Anglo-American intermarriages, the operative factor is the presence of a British man in America, almost certainly engaged in professional employment. The family’s movements likely reflect the career opportunities of an engineer working internationally.

To move forward we need two kinds of research. First, the pattern sketched above needs to be tested with an expanded sample. Second, we will need to delve into the histories of many representative families. The second is well supported by infrastructure developed to meet the needs of genealogical researchers. The first is not. Currently there are no publicly available large scale databases containing passenger records that can be used for computer-based analysis.

Constructing such a data set is difficult, time-consuming, often tedious work. Lists before World War I are handwritten with legibility frequently an issue. The agents employed time-saving practices ranging from less than transparent abbreviations to actual suppression of information, most flagrantly, by simply declaring, as seemed policy for at least one line from 1875, that all working age males would be listed as “gentlemen.” Yet a database of passenger lists at a time when transatlantic steamers were the “only way to cross,” might support research in a number of areas. I have demonstrated elsewhere that the lists provide a window on the evolving American class structure. The list also makes visible the strong presence of transatlantic business travelers, providing a basis for new work in the undeveloped area of 19th century business networks. Finally, as the example above shows, the lists can also be used to explore transatlantic family and social networks. The database would be worth what it would cost to build.

Feature image credit: The image of Aurania is courtesy of the Norway Heritage Collection. Source: www.heritage-ships.com. Used with permission.