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From Here to There: Assisted Passenger Lists from England to Lyttelton, Canterbury, New Zealand 1855-1871 by Barbara Hafslund and Heather Morris. Published by BYTO Indexers, P.O. Box 257, Burpengary 4505, Queensland Australia. c. 1994. Two versions: 4 microfiche or diskette. Each version is Aus$20 plus Aus$4 payable by cheque or money order. (Ed: Use Ruesch Int'l at 800-424-2923 to get your international check).

This index provides a wealth of names, often the county of residence in England, ages and occupations of the many immigrants who received assisted passage from England to New Zealand in the 1855-1871 time period. This is important to us here in the US because it is the siblings of our ancestors who often end up in Australia and New Zealand.

The voyage was frequently beset by starvation, violent storms, outbreaks of diseases such as typhoid fever and small pox resulting in a lot of deaths all of which are recorded. Many remarks on the original records have been transcribed often giving an amusing glimpse into the lives of the passengers and providing further clues in the search.

There is an alphabetical Name and Ship index making the lists easier to search.

The microfiche version of the lists were printed first. After printing it was found that there were no ships for 1863. More research found the missing ships and an additional 4,000 names were added to the computer disk not on the microfiche. The computer disk also contains the list of paying passengers as well as all the assisted passengers. The original lists are available through the LDS on films 0287464-9, and these should be checked if a reference to your ancestors is found. The microfiche version of the index does contain a listing of known ships where no passenger lists have been located yet. These ships, with no known passengers are not listed in the computer version.

The computer version of the program also contains a very helpful explanation of the immigration regulations relating to assisted passages as they existed in 1863. I checked a couple of my NZ research books and could not find any of this information. The handicap is that screen printing is the only way to get a paper copy of the information.

There were a couple of problems with using the program. Installation of the program requires the FILES=75 and BUFFERS=20 in the Config.sys file. This required me changing the config.sys file before I could even install the program. In the Help screens hitting any keys other than [ESC], [PgDn] or [Print Screen] locked up the program and it had to be rebooted. When doing a surname search you have to get a surname to match exactly one already in the lists to get into the name lists. Once into the listing of names you can then scroll through the list to find alternative spellings. You can identify other people on the same ship and from the same family by the family number, which is the key to using the computer version. On the microfiche all the family members are listed together in the transcription for that ship.

This is a useful index for anyone who has English emigrating to New Zealand in this time period. Unfortunately the computer version, which has a larger number of people listed, has problems with the workings of the program. The compilers are looking to extend the time period of the index. I hope they improve the computer program and update the microfiche version in the process.

Reviewed by Paul Milner
BIGWILL v.2 no.6, 1995