Google Your Way to a Ship Picture

By Connie Lenzen

An article published in the 11 May 2006 issue of the Vancouver Columbian.

A Columbian reader asks for help in finding a photo of a ship. She says, “My great-grandfather came to the United States via Liverpool and New York in 1852 on the ship Ticonderoga. It was launched in New York in 1849 and wrecked in 1872 off the coast of India.” She goes on to say that she once found information on the Internet about the ship, but the websites she used have “disappeared from view.”

Web sites on the Internet have a habit of disappearing. It’s like knowing where your favorite author’s books are in the library. Then, the books are rearranged, and you can’t find anything. In a library, you can look at the catalog and/or ask a librarian for help. On the Internet, you do a Google search and hope for the best.

I did a Google search for “Ticonderoga” and “1852” and came up with thousands of hits. When I added the term “Liverpool,” there were still too many hits. Many of the websites had information about a ship called Ticonderoga that sailed to Australia in August 1852. Unsanitary conditions on the ship created a situation where diseases ran unchecked, killing most of the passengers. To eliminate all of those websites, I put “-australia” into the search box.

There still were too many hits. Information was coming up about Fort Ticonderoga. So “-fort” was put into the search box. That brought the number of websites down to a decent number.

One website had a page about the right Ticonderoga. The ship was constructed of oak and iron. It was 169 feet long by 37 feet wide. In April 1852, it arrived at the Port of New York with approximately 300 passengers. It also carried general cargo, so it must have been extremely crowded.

Oh, yes, this Ticonderoga was the ship that went to Australia in August 1852. On that voyage, it carried 795 passengers.

This is all interesting, but the goal is to find a photo. When all else fails, I turn to Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. She has a Ships & Passenger Lists category, www.cyndislist.com/ships.htm.

An “Index to Ships in Books “ online at www.shipindex.org, shows that there are several books that have photos of the ship Ticonderoga.

There are several maritime museums with libraries. An e-mail requesting a copy of the pages can be sent to one of them. Cyndis List has links to several of them.

© 2006

Connie Lenzen, CG

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