Hello All
Since the dawn of time, when a ship docked, someone from the local newspaper went down to the docks to find out who had been on board. Depending on how many column inches he had to fill, there was also how many male children and how many female children and if we are lucky manservants and maid servants.
Sites like Ancestry allow you to view the manifest of all the passengers and crew of so many of the voyages, pre-war and post-war. Some even detail how much luggage they took with them, where they last lived and where they were going to live.
All well and good.
My question is this - Why are there no airline passenger lists? A.V. Roe started the first regular airline in the UK, linking Manchester, Southport and Blackpool on 1st May 1919. Granted that they were only internal flights, but international flights soon started - where passports had to be shown, before and after the flight. Passenger manifests must have existed. Why are they not available? It cannot be for confidentiality reasons - I can easily trace the fact that one of my married living uncles carried on an affair for two years, island hopping round the Pacific with his unmarried girlfriend. She gave birth on one voyage and the manifest was altered to take this into account. So if this kind of information is readily available from ship's manifests, why are airline manifests not available?
Any ideas, anybody?
Regards
Kiltpin
Since the dawn of time, when a ship docked, someone from the local newspaper went down to the docks to find out who had been on board. Depending on how many column inches he had to fill, there was also how many male children and how many female children and if we are lucky manservants and maid servants.
Sites like Ancestry allow you to view the manifest of all the passengers and crew of so many of the voyages, pre-war and post-war. Some even detail how much luggage they took with them, where they last lived and where they were going to live.
All well and good.
My question is this - Why are there no airline passenger lists? A.V. Roe started the first regular airline in the UK, linking Manchester, Southport and Blackpool on 1st May 1919. Granted that they were only internal flights, but international flights soon started - where passports had to be shown, before and after the flight. Passenger manifests must have existed. Why are they not available? It cannot be for confidentiality reasons - I can easily trace the fact that one of my married living uncles carried on an affair for two years, island hopping round the Pacific with his unmarried girlfriend. She gave birth on one voyage and the manifest was altered to take this into account. So if this kind of information is readily available from ship's manifests, why are airline manifests not available?
Any ideas, anybody?
Regards
Kiltpin
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