Family Matters - 9.Ship Manifests
I have to confess to a weakness for ship manifests. They can provide a wealth of information. The Ellis Island records relating to arrivals in New York span the period 1892 to 1924 and can be searched (see http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/default.asp )
If you do this though you need to experiment with different spellings of Goninan. Here some of the entries found:-
Elizabeth M Goninan – arrived 1907 – residence, Cornwall – age 50
William Goninan – arrived 1907 – age 38
Emily Goninan – arrived 1907 – age 36
May Goninan – arrived 1907 – age 14
Richard Goninan – arrived 1907 – residence Camborne - age 22
Richard Goninon – arrived 1911 – residence, England - age 26
Richard Goninon – arrived 1914 – residence, Camborne – age 26
Richard Goninon – arrived 1921 – residence, Butte, USA – age 37
Alfred Goninan - arrived 1917 – residence, Newcastle, Australia – age 52
Elizabeth M Goninan
Elizabeth was 50, single and a dressmaker. The ship was the Teutonic and it sailed from Southampton, arriving in New York on the 10th October 1907. I am not sure she actually travelled because her name is crossed out. She was the daughter of John and Elizabeth Goninan, John being one of the offspring of Richard and Mary Ann Goninan (ie the Gwithian branch). Elizabeth was intending to visit her brother, also John, who was then living at 913, Madison Street, Butte, Montana.
On the very same page of the manifest I found another Goninan, although under her married name of Grace Whear. Grace was a daughter of William Henry and Caroline Goninan and she had married Fred Whear on the 9th Feb 1907 at Gwithian Church. She was 22 when she sailed and she was joining her husband in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She is described as being of fair complexion with blue eyes. Later her sister, Catherine Jane Goninan, also migrated to Council Bluffs, having married John Hall in 1912.
William, Emily and May Goninan
The 2nd, 3rd and 4th entries here (William, Emily and May) are all one family travelling together and they are US citizens. As such no detail is shown on the manifest, so who are they? William John Goninan was born in 1865, the son of Edward Goninan and Sarah Faull. Edward was the son of Edward Goninan and Catherine Williams and this Edward was the son of Richard and Mary Ann Goninan (ie the Gwithian branch).
In 1881 William was living in Camborne with his mother and his sister, Mary Ann. He was then a wheelwright. He also had a brother, Edward, who was four years older and had already gone to the States.
William married Emily Pascoe at Camborne Parish Church on the 10th December 1887. He gave his occupation then as a carpenter and Emily was a domestic servant. They were to have two children, Mae and Beverly. I don’t know when William and Emily settled in the US but I know they spent time in the Upper Michigan and settled in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Clearly in 1907 they had made a visit home to Cornwall.
Richard Goninan
There four entries for a Richard Goninan. I am fairly sure that these are all the same person. He was born in 1884 in Camborne and he was the son of Richard Goninan and Ann Selina Williams I have looked at these entries in detail and have found the following:-
1907 Probably Richard’s first journey to America. He left Southampton on the Etruria on the 8th June 1907 and he was bound for the copper mines of Globe, Arizona. Quoting from Arthur Todd’s book on the Cornish Miner in America – ‘’ the Cousin Jacks preferred Globe in the cooler uplands of Arizona. Globe displayed one striking feature that marked it off from all other mining camps: the presence of Apaches........ this area of Arizona had been bloodied by the fight between miners, cattle-rustlers and Apaches for possession of land..... The cemetery at Globe, white against a bare hillside, its only shade coming from the cypresses planted by Cornish miners, tells tales of violence and robbery, in which white fought against white and both against the Apaches. Here are buried the Pascoes, the Opies and Trevillians of Cornwall.... Nearby are the graves of Sheriff Glenn Reynolds and his deputy Hunkydory Holmes murdered in October 1889 at Riverside by the Apache Kid whom they were escorting to the state prison at Yuma........ and of Phin Clanton, cattle-rustler, desperado and brother of another outlaw gunned down by Wyatt Earp. And all these headstones of miners and renegades look out towards Pioneer Pass... and across the canyon to Pascoe Hill, sometimes called Pasty Hill, and to Cousin Jack Hill, sometimes called St Just Hill”
1911 Richard left Southampton on the 2nd August 1911 on the Oceanic. This time he was heading for Calumet in the Upper Michigan (copper again!). He gives his mother, Ann, as his home contact and he was joining his uncle ‘W John Goninan’ or it may be Mr John Goninan; this would make more sense since he had an uncle John but not a W. John. On the other hand I think that John was not alive in 1911 because the death of a John Goninan is recorded in Montana in 1909. We often find with this sort of research that we are left with unanswered questions; very frustrating but that’s how it is.
1914 Richard left Southampton on the 10th June 1914 on the Olympic heading for Calumet again, joining his friend Absalom Richards who was living in Mohawk
1921 Richard left Southampton on the 16th July 1921 on the Aquitania to join his wife Elizabeth in Butte, Montana. They were then living at 736 East Park St in Butte. This was Richard’s second marriage.
Alfred Goninan
Alfred Goninan (founder of the Australian engineering firm) sailed for New York from Liverpool in England on the S.S. Adriatic arriving on the 30th November 1917 (although in his memoirs Alfred recalls it as being the Cedric). His details are recorded as follows:-
age 52
height 5’ 4’’
eyes: grey
hair: grey
born St Just, Cornwall
occupation: manager
permanent residence, Newcastle, Australia
contact Ralph Goninan of Newcastle (Alfred’s brother)
in transit, final destination Newcastle
contact address while in the US, c/o Marconi Co of New York
In his memoirs (A Cousin Jack in Australia, edited by L.E. Fredman) Alfred describes this business trip in some detail. He sailed from Sydney in May of 1917 with his wife, Annie, and their daughter also Annie but known as Queenie, together with a Mr Henderson, a business associate. They visited Honolulu on the way to San Francisco. In California Alfred and Mr Henderson visited various works to look at electric furnaces. On their way to Chicago they visited the Grand Canyon. In Chicago they visited more engineering works before going on to Detroit (the Ford plant) and Pittsburg (the Carnegie Steel Works). From New York they visited Niagara Falls.
It was then that Alfred decided he would like to visit England and he and his daughter sailed on the S.S. Lapland which was a troopship and sailing as part of an escorted convoy of troopships (the US had joined the First World War in April of that year). Alfred and Queenie arrived in Liverpool on the 1st September. It must have been a hair-raising trip with German U-boats active in the Atlantic.
In April of that year the Lapland had struck a mine but managed to limp into Liverpool. In the June it had been requisitioned and converted into a troopship. In the UK Alfred visited Sheffield and Birmingham as well as his beloved Cornwall. He then returned to New York which is the voyage listed on the Ellis Island records.