April 15, 2012, is the One Hundredth Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Did you have an ancestor who was on board? What was that person’s story? Did he or she survive, or go down with the ship? To find these answers, you will need some genealogy resources that are about the Titanic. Here are a few to get you started.
Ancestry.com is giving everyone free access to their Titanic Collection from right now through April 15, 2012. It includes 200 million Immigration and Travel records. The website also has records about fatality reports, graves, survivors, crew records, and passenger lists. I think this would be an excellent place to start. You do not have to be a member of Ancestry.com to access its Titanic Collection right now.
FamilySearch has a 37 minute video in their Learning Center that is called “Titanic: The Official Story”. James Cronan, a record specialist in diplomatic and colonial records takes you through the history of the ship. He uses documents from The National Archives. His great-grandfather was a crewman on board the Titanic.
FindMyPast UK has two sets of records that include information about the Titanic. One is called “Maritime births, marriages and deaths”. This set includes vivid full color scans of the original birth, marriage, and death records of all Titanic crew members and all Titanic passengers who died at sea.
The other set is called “White Star Lines Officers’ books”. This set includes full color scans of the original service records of White Star Line officers and commanders, including the officers that were on board the Titanic. The information for each officer includes: date and place of birth, address, details of his apprenticeship, the names and dates of the ships served upon, and the date he left the company.
Archives.com has a collection of Titanic Articles & Newspapers. You can see a newspaper article from the Trenton Evening Times, that was published on April 15, 1912, after the Titanic sank on the Archives.com website. It also has a newspaper article from the Daily Review, which was published in Decatur, Illinois, on April 15, 2012. Archives.com is offering a 7-Day free trial for genealogists who want to check out their service.
Image by cliff1066 on Flickr