Fearless Females: A family document

March 9 — Take a family document (baptismal certificate, passenger list, naturalization petition, etc.) and write a brief narrative using the information.

I have chosen a page from the manifest for the ship SS Lake Manitoba on its sailing from Liverpool to Quebec from 31 August to 12 September, 1911.  My grandmother, Lucy Millicent Crockett, her sister, Alice, and her sister-in-law, Jessie are listed on this ship's list.

The following picture is of the Crockett family in England before they left for North America.  My grandmother, Lucy Millicent Crockett is shown seated on the right.

Back: James, Richard (Bert), Jessie (wife of Bert), Thomas, Alice, George
Front: Ada, Amos (holding grandson George) Alice, Lucy

This picture was taken about 1910, and by October 1911, all eleven people in the picture had immigrated to Edmonton, Alberta but they departed on eight separate sailings!  I have underlined the family members who were in the picture in the following list of ships.

The father of the family, Amos, was the first to leave, sailing aboard the "Merion" from Liverpool to Philadelphia in February 1911.  He was accompanied by his brother, George Crockett, who returned to England two months later.  It appears that Amos made his way to Alberta and set up a sawmill on the shores of Lake George near Busby, Alberta.

Bert, the oldest son, was the next of the Crockett family to leave, sailing from Liverpool to Quebec aboard the Laurentic, arriving July 15, 1911.  He was sponsored by the Salvation Army and took the CPR train directly to Edmonton.

The manifest shown at the top of this page shows the next group to cross the Atlantic: Bert's wife, Jessie, and her two sisters-in-law, Alice and Lucy. They listed their destination as Edmonton and Jessie was joining her husband.

Bert and Jessie's little boy, George Albert, came with his grandmother, Alice, and his aunt, Ada in October 1911 aboard the Royal George which sailed from Avonmouth.  All previous sailings were from Liverpool, in the northern part of England but Alice, Ada, and young George traveled south to catch their ship in Avonmouth.  They were listed with a Salvation Army party and Alice was listed as a wife - lumberyard 9 months.  Does that mean Amos arrived 9 months previous?

At the end of 1911 there were still three Crockett brothers in England as well as Alice's sister and family, Rebecca and Bagot Arnold.  The Arnold and Crockett families had been close since they lived in Wales, and Ada Arnold married her first cousin, George Bunnagar Crockett a few years after the emigrated.

Bagot Arnold and his son, Harry sailed aboard the Canada in February 1912; Bagot claimed to be joining his brother A. Crockett.

George Crockett, brother to Amos, left from Bristol with his family and his nephew, Thomas Crockett, aboard the Royal Edward in April 1912.

James Crockett and his new wife, Emily, boarded the Empress of Ireland in Liverpool on September 20, 1912, just one day after they were married in Staffordshire.

In October 1912  the rest of the Arnold family left Liverpool aboard the Lake Manitoba.  George Bunnagar Crockett accompanied the Arnold family, his future in-laws, on this voyage.

At last the family was reunited in Edmonton where many descendants still reside.