CanadaGenealogy, or, 'Jane's Your Aunt': Nordic Genealogy Conference - Canada's National Museums - the Immigration Museum

Looking forward to hearing more about Nordic genealogy this week.

More about the Nordic Genealogy Conference - on right now virtually - and the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, Washington, USA here: https://www.nordicmuseum.org/genealogyconference

The "Emigrant" by Vancouver Island artist Armano Barbon, located on Halifax's waterfront by Pier 21. Photograph courtesy of Ted McGrath, on Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence.

Learning about a family's immigration to Canada or the USA is a first step in researching their lives in North America. Most often we can find dates, the ports of departure and/or arrival; sometimes we stop there.

Placing that family in the context of emigration and immigration at the time can be a longer process, but one very worthwhile.

For Canada, start by looking for information about the documents (incl. abbreviations and notations) at Library and Archives Canada (Research Aids), and/or reading Dave Obee's book, Destination Canada: A Genealogical Guide to Immigration Records (2010).

Then read carefully through the full passenger list, each 'class' in turn. Note any special comments on the list (detentions, births, deaths, stowaways, special cargo).

Later you can go to newspaper databases available to see if anything was mentioned about the trip, like the clipping below. And look for an image of the ship (or even airplane). And after that, you can look at the much wider context of both emigration and immigration at the time of your family's journey.

According to Canada's Museums Act (Statutes of Canada 1990, c. 3, Part 1, 15.5)¹:

"The purpose of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 is to explore the theme of immigration to Canada in order to enhance public understanding of the experiences of immigrants as they arrived in Canada, of the vital role immigration has played in the building of Canada and of the contributions of immigrants to Canada’s culture, economy and way of life." ²

As the Museum's name suggests, it's housed at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was one of Canada's immigration centres from 1928 to 1971, and the departure point for many of Canada's military during WW II.

The Museum is interested in all immigration to Canada, has research resources on site, and welcomes stories from families. The website has a good selection already.

Right now, there is a project to contact families of the very first immigrants, 54 of them, who came to Pier 21 - 8 March 1928 - on Holland America's "Nieuw Amsterdam" which sailed from Rotterdam. The Museum has a typed list and the passenger list images on-line here.

Only one immigrant was from a Nordic country - Helmi Nieminen, born 1898, the passenger list says in Helsinki, Finland. Her occupation was masseuse/servant, and she was heading to Toronto, Ontario where she had a named friend. I believe I have her naturalization date in 1936, if correct, her given names are shown as Helmi Irene, and later addresses are still in Toronto, but with Oiva Huhteala. On one voters' list, they are each using both surnames.

Four others, all from Holland, were heading to British Columbia - Frits Bos to New Westminster, Jacob Hiemstra to Trail, Wouter van den Kamp to Eburne and Ivanie Dykhuizen to Ladner.

If any of these people or any of the 1928 passengers to Pier 21, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada are in your family, the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 would like to hear from you.

The Museum of Immigration website: https://pier21.ca/

The Museum of Immigration Blog, "First Families of Pier 21" by Cara MacDonald: https://pier21.ca/blog/cara-macdonald/first-families-of-pier-21

REFERENCES

1. Museums Act, 1990, Statutes of Canada 1990: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/m-13.4/page-1.html

2. Canada has other 'National' Museums which may be of interest to you. The Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the Canadian War Museum, the Canadian Museum of Nature and the National Gallery of Canada, all in Ottawa, the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. And now there is the Virtual Museum of New France.