Find Ancestors in the Missing Friends Project

The Missing Friends Project on OliveTreeGenealogy.com is extracting the names of those who immigrated from UK to America or Canada and who were inquired about by family in various 19th Century newspapers.

Missing Friends Project starts with Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published in London England and their weekly column (1886-1900) called "Long Lost Relatives". We also have begun extracting names of those in the Boston Pilot, published in Boston Massachusetts (1831-1921).

Our Boston Pilot project is only extracting the names of missing Irish individuals who sailed to Canada. It is important to note that many who sailed first to Canada went on to USA and are so noted in the extracts. Many of the relatives and friends seeking them were based in USA and their location is also given.

We also plan to publish extracts of weekly columns of Missing Friends from The Irish World (1892-1899), published in New York and The Manchester Weekly Times (1891-1893) published in England. We will add other newspapers as we find them and can access them.

The fields being extracted are name of person in America or Canada who is missing, where they lived in the UK, when they left, where they intended going, ship name if known, when they were last heard from, where they were living when last heard from, who is seeking them and any miscellaneous comments.  

There are  links and databases at Missing Friends

Online Images Boston Pilot Missing Friends

Boston Pilot (1838-1857)
Volume XI, Number 41, 7 October 1848

Run, don't walk, to view the online pages of The Boston Pilot  at Boston College Libraries to match your ancestor found in my Missing Friends Project.

The Missing Friends Project is abstracting the names of those who immigrated from UK to America or Canada and who were inquired about by family in various 19th Century newspapers. 

Missing Friends Project starts with Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published in London England and their weekly column (1886-1900) called "Long Lost Relatives". We also have begun extracting names of those in the Boston Pilot, published in Boston Massachusetts (1831-1921).

Our Boston Pilot project is only extracting the names of missing Irish individuals who sailed to Canada. It is important to note that many who sailed first to Canada went on to USA and are so noted in the extracts. Many of the relatives and friends seeking them were based in USA and their location is also given.

Available online: 27 January 1838 - 26 December 1857 (996 issues)

Missing Friends Project

Missing Friends The Missing Friends Project is abstracting the names of those who immigrated from UK to America or Canada and who were inquired about by family in various 19th Century newspapers. 

Missing Friends Project starts with Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published in London England and their weekly column (1886-1900) called "Long Lost Relatives". We also have begun extracting names of those in the Boston Pilot, published in Boston Massachusetts (1831-1921).

Our Boston Pilot project is only extracting the names of missing Irish individuals who sailed to Canada. It is important to note that many who sailed first to Canada went on to USA and are so noted in the extracts. Many of the relatives and friends seeking them were based in USA and their location is also given. 

We also plan to publish extracts of weekly columns of Missing Friends from The Irish World (1892-1899), published in New York and The Manchester Weekly Times (1891-1893) published in England. We will add other newspapers as we find them and can access them.

The fields being extracted are name of person in America or Canada who is missing, where they lived in the UK, when they left, where they intended going, ship name if known, when they were last heard from, where they were living when last heard from, who is seeking them and any miscellaneous comments.

Missing Friends Database 1831-1921 Online!

Great news for those searching Irish ancestors!  A new project sponsored by Boston College’s Irish Studies Program and produced by the Office of Marketing Communications
has digitized the Boston Pilot's Missing Friends Column covering 90 years of Irish individuals seeking information their friends or family members who left Ireland for N. America. This explanation from the website:

From October 1831 through October 1921, the Boston Pilot newspaper printed a “Missing Friends” column with advertisements from people looking for “lost” friends and relatives who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States. This extraordinary collection of 41,249 records is available here as a searchable online database, which contains a text record for each ad that appeared in the Pilot.

Back in May 2010 I published a blog post about a new OliveTreeGenealogy.com project called  The Missing Friends Project. My goal was to extract the names of those who immigrated from UK to America or Canada and who were inquired about by family in various 19th Century newspapers.

My Missing Friends Project starts with Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published in London England and their weekly column (1886-1900) called "Long Lost Relatives". I also began extracting names of those in the Boston Pilot, published in Boston Massachusetts (1831-1921).

You can search for extracted names from Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper and the Boston Pilot on my ongoing Missing Friends Project .  But don't miss this new digitization project for the Boston Pilot names !    
Search the Missing Friends Database

Missing Friends from Boston Pilot 1830-1840

The Missing Friends Project has added another set of extracts from Newspapers.

The recent set is from the Boston Pilot, published in Boston Massachusetts. From October 1831 to October 1921, the Boston Pilot newspaper printed a Missing Friends (Information Wanted) column with advertisements from people looking for lost friends and relatives who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States & Canada. Many travelling to Canadian ports went on to USA, but others remained in Canada. This project is extracting the names and other details of those who sailed into Quebec and other Canadian Ports of Arrival.

This dataset of Missing Friends from the Boston Pilot is for those who were known to have arrived or settled in Quebec. Since ships passenger lists to Canada did not have to be archvived before 1865, these extractions will form an important piece in the gap in surviving ships passenger lists.