By searching their old passenger lists and ship arrival records, I found that he arrived on the ship Benjamin Adams<\/em> on 21 October 1853.<\/p>\n I next looked for every mention of the ship Benjamin Adams<\/em> in the old newspapers, concentrating around the time that he arrived in the U.S. in October 1853.<\/p>\n Who knew \u2013 newspapers around America tracked ship movements.<\/p>\n Shipping was big business in the 19th century. What happened to ships and their cargo impacted business, so readers wanted details of the movements of each ship \u2013 including the Benjamin Adams<\/em>.<\/p>\n Searching in GenealogyBank<\/a>, I was able to track this ship from the day it left Liverpool, England \u2013 24 August 1853 \u2013 to the ship\u2019s arrival here.<\/p>\n It never occurred to me that we could do that with old newspapers, but I had a hunch and gave it a try.<\/p>\n Status reports on ships were gathered and reported from all sources. In this example, the steamer Asia<\/em> reported that the \u201cBenj Adams\u201d had sailed on the 24th for New York City. Since the newspaper report was printed on 10 September 1853, I knew that the ship sailed on 24 August 1853.<\/p>\n Notice that the name of the ship was abbreviated. Finding this newspaper article, I now knew the date when he left for America and that the trip took him 56 days. I also realized that he was only 15 years old when he left. He would turn 16 in America at the end of October, a little over a week after his ship arrived here.<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/daily-atlas-newspaper-0910-1853-benjamin-adams.png\")
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\nThat is common in shipping reports.
\nBe flexible in your searches for ship movements.
\nUse various spellings for the name of the ship:<\/p>\n\n