The Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements placed in The Boston Pilot 1831-1920

Beginning in 1831 and over the course of the next eighty-five years, the nationally distributed, Boston Pilot newspaper printed some 45,000 “Missing Friends” advertisements placed by friends and relatives. No one knows how many of these families found each other as a result of the ads, but these nineteenth-century notices continue to help families today find their ancestors. These advertisements typically referred to the exact place of origin of the seeker and/or the sought. Many of the ads also describe the process and route of immigration, and even the name of the passenger ship. Many advertisements refer to women, for whom determining exact origin is even more difficult, due to the lack of naturalization records. So the Missing Friends advertisements help fill a great gap in nineteenth-century records for a mobile, impoverished, immigrant population.

This valuable database comes to you through the generosity of NEHGS Councilor, Thomas R. Crowley.

Tips for searching this database:

• The names of the "Missing Friends" have been indexed, and are searchable by first name and/or last name.
• Keyword searches will reveal the names of other individuals, including those who were in search of their loved ones.
• Keyword searches will search the entire text of the document, and can reveal occupations as well as additional information.
• The search years are for the dates of publication of the notice. Notices were routinely posted years after someone's arrival in America.
• The spelling of surnames was not standardized, and the Soundex search will not find all variants. Try searching for all spelling variations.

For more information about The Search for Missing Friends database, read Michael J. Leclerc's article from the Summer 2002 issue of New England Ancestors magazine.
 
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