Mary (Marna) Anderstdotter was born in Sweden. At the age of 18 she joined the Mormon church. Her mother was horrified and told Mary she must either give up her religion or leave home.
Mary would not give up her new-found faith, so she left home with only the clothes she wore to live with her older sister and work in a glove factory. Even a visit from a preacher who threatened her imprisonment could not sway her. She figured she could worship her Lord as well in prison as she could out of it.
Within a few years, she and her sister emigrated to the United States and joined a wagon company that would travel across the plains to Utah. Mary walked the entire way.
Mary fell in love and married soon after her arrival in Utah but her life didn’t turn out the way she expected. According to family lore, Mary’s husband was an alcoholic and they eventually separated, leaving Mary alone as a single mom with two young boys.
Mary later married Christian Hansen Jensen and they built a life together but it wasn’t without tragedy. They lost all their crops in a drought and had to make a new start in a new town and a new home, where they lived a pioneer life filled with hardship and sorrow, including the loss of an 8-year old son.
Mary lived for 91 years. Throughout the difficulties of life, Mary was filled with faith, as is illustrated by this prayer that she often spoke and shared with her family:
“Lord help me to be true to myself and faithful unto Thee. I ask not for fame nor wealth. I ask wisdom and goodness. I ask Thee to inspire me with truth, enlighten me with love. Guard me from my greatest dangers, and make me useful to thee. Help me to overcome evil and live the example I would teach. May I be true, faithful, holy of heart and life. Make me equal to my duty, never above it. May my hope be an absolute trust in Thee.”
Mary’s Prayer
Finding Mary’s Immigration Records
I am lucky to have many stories of my ancestors. I have been able to get acquainted with my forbears and learn from their examples and I feel truly blessed! One thing I am discovering is that often the stories have been created and added to FamilySearch, but records are missing. This was the case for Mary. Some records are attached to her profile but one that I immediately noticed was missing was her immigration record. With immigration records readily available, I made it my task to seek out this record, which I thought would only take a few minutes because the name of the ship she traveled on, its captain, her port of departure, her port of entry, and her arrival date are all included in her life history.
I searched the database “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957” at Ancestry with no luck. Spellings of names can sometimes vary from record to record, making it difficult to discover ancestors through database searches. Since I had the name of the ship and its arrival date, I next tried to locate the passenger record and browse through the passenger list. Mary’s life history states that she traveled on the ship Franklin and arrived in New York on 29 May 1862. No passenger lists for the Franklin exist in this database on May 29 1862 or any of the 7 days before or after the 29th.
I next turned to a recently discovered record set at FamilySearch, “Register of vessels arriving at the Port of New York from foreign ports, 1789-1919” and found that a ship called the Franklin, did indeed arrive in the port on the date recorded in Mary’s life history.[1]
It is unclear why I was unable to discover a passenger list for this ship, but my next step was to search for those who, according to her life history, traveled with Mary on the ship. They include:
- Mary’s sister Ingeborg Rosequist Jonsen and her husband Truls Jonsen
- Ingeborg’s two children from a previous marriage, Johanna and Anders Rosequist
- Ingeborg and Truls Jonsen’s daughter Elna Marie Trulson.
A search of the New York Passenger and Crew Lists database for Truls Jonsen led to the discovery of a Pruts Johnson that arrived on 9 June 1862.[2] Clicking on this record, I discovered that the name had been misindexed and was corrected to “Truls Jonsen.” In looking at the image, I discovered the names of Truls, Ingeborg, and their children.
Their names and ages match those of Ingeborg’s family. But where was Mary?
I discovered a Maren Andersen of the correct age on the next page of the passenger list.[3] Her nationality is listed as Swedish, and her age of 22 fits with her documented birthdate of 26 July 1839. Furthermore, the person listed next to her is Ingri. Truelsen. Could this be Truls Jonsen’s daughter from a first marriage, or perhaps another relative?
Additional research is needed to discover why Mary’s life history states she traveled on the Franklin with her sister’s family, arriving 29 May when a passenger list shows them traveling on the Athena and arriving 9 June. However, this example illustrates that there are many steps that can be taken to locate your ancestors on a passenger list. Don’t give up if a database search doesn’t provide a record! Be persistent and use various methods and you will likely discover the records you seek.
[1] “Register of vessels arriving at the Port of New York from foreign ports, 1789-1919,” digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSKX-KSYP-3?i=423&cat=115379: accessed 7 January 2020), FHL Microfilm #1415165, image 424, Franklin, 29 May 1862. [2] “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957”, database with images, Ancestry (https://ancestry.com : accessed 7 January 2020), Roll > M237, 1820-1897 > Roll 220 > image 30, Pruts Jonsen, 9 June 1862. [3] “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957”, database with images, Ancestry (https://ancestry.com : accessed 7 January 2020), Roll > M237, 1820-1897 > Roll 220 > image 31, Maren Andersen, 9 June 1862.
