Index to Doukhobor Ship Passenger Surnames

by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff

The following index contains Doukhobor surnames extracted from ship passenger lists for the period 1898-1930. By searching for a surname, you will find the name of the ship(s) that that surname was listed in. You will then need to search the Index to Doukhobor Ship Lists to find the date and port of arrival as well as the microfilm reel number. Once this is known, you may obtain a copy of the original ship manifest.

Notes

This surname index is not all-inclusive, as the ship passenger lists for over 3,200 Doukhobor immigrants are lost or incomplete. In particular, the passenger list for the S.S. Lake Huron, which arrived in Halifax on January 10, 1899, was lost in Winnipeg, Manitoba by Immigration Branch officials and is presumed destroyed. Also, the ship's purser on board the S.S. Lake Superior, which arrived in Halifax on February 17, 1899, recorded only 899 of the 1,997 Doukhobor passengers.

If your family immigrated to Canada in 1899 but does not appear in the ship passenger index above, then by process of elimination, they probably sailed aboard the SS Lake Huron #1 or the SS Lake Superior #1. As indicated above, these ship passenger lists are missing or incomplete. If they immigrated from Tiflis province, Russia, they probably sailed aboard the SS Lake Huron #1. If they immigrated from Elizavetpol or Kars province, Russia, they probably sailed aboard the SS Lake Superior #1. 

The names in the ship passenger lists are the original Russian, pre-Canadianized versions of names. Furthermore, they were written down by the ship's purser phonetically the way that they sounded. Therefor, do not expect to find your Doukhobor ancestor's name spelled as it is today; realize that your immigrant ancestor was probably illiterate and even if he or she could read Russian, they would not be able to recognize the written name since it was written in English. With this in mind, I have used the standard spelling of each surname in this index, based on the U.S. Library of Congress System.

Bibliography

• National Archives of Canada, Microfilm Reel Nos. C-4519, C-4542, C-4784, C-7341, T-481, T-482, T-483, T-484, T-485, T-486, T-494, T-497, T-498, T-505, T-513, T-518, T-4692, T-4699, T-4721, T-4738, T-4741, T-4768, T-4769, T-4774, T-4775, T-4776, T-4777, T-4778, T-4779, T-4783, T-4784, T-4785, T-4787, T-4788, T-4789, T-4790, T-4823, T-14715, T-14729, T-14734, T-14746, T-14801, T-14811, T-14815, T-14816, T-14825, T-14826, T-14931, T-15160 and T-15224.
• U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Microfilm Reel Nos. 293, 547, 715.

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