Complete Handwritten Passenger Manifest Of Titanic Goes Online For First Time
Posted April 16, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
They are some of the names that have become a part of history. And their final journey was one of the most famous disasters of modern times.
Now thanks to the Internet, they can be tracked online.
A website devoted to tracing people’s lineage has become the first to post the actual handwritten passenger list for the infamous Titanic, the ‘unsinkable’ ship that went down in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.
Findmypast.com is the only organization ever allowed to scan the real passenger logs and put them on the web.
Before that, they’d been held under guard at the British National Archives and could only be viewed under direct supervision.
The documents are revealing. They show both the rich and the famous were on board the luxury liner.
But so were poorer people who booked cheap passage on the massive ship to try and start a new life in North America.
That explains why a woman listed as the Countess of Rothes was in a first class suite along with her cousin Gladys Cherry and their personal maid. All three survived the mishap.
Millionaire John Jacob Astor did not.
Less certain is the fate of 20-year-old George Mackay, a butler who booked passage on the boat in the hopes of stepping off into a better future in New York.
In the end, more perished than escaped. When the Titanic finally sank on April 15, 1912, some 1,523 lives were lost, making it amongst the greatest sea disasters ever recorded.
It’s since been immortalized in several movies, including the multiple Oscar-winning 1997 James Cameron film, which remains the biggest box office victor in Hollywood history.
The passenger manifest is being offered online for free, but only for a limited time. And you’ll have to register and download some special free software to see it.
To find out more, click here.
