Maritime Monday: 227 Doukhobors Arrive in Canada in 1912

SS Californian on the morning after Titanic sank

In the spring of 1912, four separate ships brought more exiled Russian Doukhobors to a new life in Canada.

These journeys might have been unremarkable except for the following events:

• The Ultonia lost one life when a male infant child (Ivan Rybalkin) died at sea. [5]

• The Canada had to quarantine two Doukhobor families (Esaulov and Kolesnikov) on its arrival. [6]

• The Californian “observed distress signals sent up by the nearby sinking Titanic but ignored them”. [7]

Sources:

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, Californian.jpg

1. Steve Lapshinoff & Jonathan Kalmakoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928 (Crescent Valley: self-published, 2001), 138; citing National Archives of Canada, Microfilm Reel # T-4692. Note: There is some controversy whether or not there were passengers aboard the Californian during this April voyage. For anecdotal evidence that a six-member family travelled on that ship, see “Polly (Harelkin) Verigin: Recalling the Titanic”, Doukhobor Genealogy Website (http://www.doukhobor.org/Harelkin.html : accessed 10 April 2016).

2. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 139; citing National Archives of Canada, Microfilm Reel # C-4784.

3. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 140-143; citing National Archives of Canada, Microfilm Reel # T-4744.

4. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 144-146; citing National Archives of Canada, Microfilm Reel # T-4787.

5. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 143.

6. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 144-145.

7. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 138.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Maritime Monday: S/S Lake Southwark and the Dimovsky Family

S/S Southwark [1]

Earlier this year, I wrote a couple of articles about Dimovsky families who immigrated to Canada in the late 1890s. They were Doukhobor pacifists who left Russia, seeking a life free from religious intolerance. For a brief explanation about how Doukhobors came to be in Canada, see Family History Through the Alphabet – S is for …

Today’s post is the third and concluding article in this 3-part series. Part 1 (those who arrived in January 1899) is available at Maritime Monday: S/S Lake Superior and the Dimovsky Family. Part 2 (those who arrived in June 1899) is available at Maritime Monday: S/S Lake Huron and the Dimovsky Families.

September 9 (tomorrow) marks the 109th anniversary of the S/S Southwark’s arrival at Quebec City. The ship’s manifest, which is complete, shows one group of people, surnamed Dimovsky. These individuals consist of Danila Dimovsky, with presumably his wife Anna and their young daughter Agafia. [2]

The Southwark departed Liverpool, England on 31 August 1905. On board were 649 passengers, 182 of whom were “Doukhobors exiles from Yakutsk, Siberia”. [3] This “second wave of Doukhobor immigration” lasted from 1902 to 1906. [4]

Upon the ship’s arrival in Canada on September 9, a small group of Doukhobors (but not Danila, his wife or their child) were quarantined, some until October and others until mid-November 1905. [5]

Like the other Dimovsky families about whom I’ve written in this series, I don’t know if or how Danila, Anna and Agafia are related to my husband. (Dimovsky is a spelling variation of Demofsky, later Demosky, later still Demoskoff.)

Sources:

1. Photo of S/S Southwark (built 1893), digital image, Norway – Heritage (http://www.norwayheritage.com : accessed 18 January 2014).

2. Steve Lapshinoff & Jonathan Kalmakoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928 (Crescent Valley: self-published, 2001), 110.

3. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 110.

4. “Index to Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists”, Doukhobor Genealogy Website (http://www.doukhobor.org/Shiplists.htm : accessed 18 January 2014), “Arrivals in 1902-1906”.

5. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 110.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Maritime Monday: S/S Lake Huron and the Dimovsky Families

S/S Lake Huron [1]

A few months ago, I wrote about a Dimovsky family that sailed on the Lake Superior in January 1899 for Canada; you can read about it here. Today’s post is about two other Dimovsky families who sailed on the Lake Huron in May 1899.

This Friday – June 6 – marks the 115th anniversary of the Lake Huron’s arrival. The ship’s manifest shows two groups of individuals surnamed Dimovsky (a spelling variation of Demofsky). The first group is headed by Savely Dimovksy [2] and the second group is headed by Feodor Dimovky. [3]

Like the same-surnamed family that sailed in January 1899, I don’t know if or how these Dimovksy families are related to my husband. They are the only families by this name on the manifest, which is complete, unlike that of the Lake Superior of January 1899.

The Lake Huron departed on 12 May 1899 “from the Russian port of Batum on the Black Sea. It carried 2,286 Doukhobors from Kars province”. [4] The ship arrived at the port of Quebec on 6 June 1899, and after nearly one month in quarantine, its passengers disembarked in early July.

Sources:

1. Photo of S/S Lake Huron (built 1881), digital image, Norway – Heritage (http://www.norwayheritage.com : accessed 18 January 2014).

2. Steve Lapshinoff & Jonathan Kalmakoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928 (Crescent Valley: self-published, 2001), 67.

3. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 75.

4. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 49.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Maritime Monday: S/S Lake Superior and the Dimovsky Family

S/S Lake Superior [1]

In the 1990s, my father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff gave me some stapled sheets of paper of research he had done about his Demosky family. (I’ve written here about how the name changed from Konkin to Demofsky to Demosky to Demoskoff.)

According to Pop’s information, his father Wasyl, grandfather Mikhail Demosky, and other family members sailed from Batum on the Lake Superior in April 1899 “with 1,010 Doukhobors, arriving at Quebec on May 10, 1899”. [2]

In those early days after I was married, I never thought to ask my father-in-law what his sources were. Now that Pop is 99 years old and has a poor memory, I can’t ask him.

After some investigation as to which ships left Europe for Canada with Doukhobors in 1899, I realized that Pop got a few things confused. For example, the Lake Superior travelled to Canada three times that year, but it departed only once from Batum, Russia (now Batumi, Georgia) in January.

Over the years, I looked at microfilmed ships’ manifests borrowed through inter-library loan from the Public Archives of Canada (now Libraries and Archives Canada). I couldn’t find Pop’s ancestors in any manifest I searched, including those of other ships like the Lake Huron. I’m disappointed, but not too surprised, at not having found Pop’s family. According to Jonathan Kalmakoff, “the ship passenger lists for over 3,200 Doukhobor immigrants are missing or incomplete”. [3]

A couple of years ago, I bought a useful publication titled Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928. It’s a lot easier to look for immigrant families, now, instead of searching through an unindexed reel of microfilm. If after finding a name or family of interest in the Lists book, and I want to see the scanned manifest, I head over to LAC's website and view the microfilmed images of these passenger lists at Passenger Lists, 1865-1922. Take note, however, that the database is not searchable by passenger name, but can be searched by name of ship, date of departure, and other variables.

Today is the 115th anniversary of the arrival of the Lake Superior in Canada. It carried 1,342 men, women and children and was the third ship that brought Doukhobor refugees from Tsarist Russia. The Lake Superior departed Batum on 4 January 1899 and arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 27 January 1899.

In honour of this historic date, here is a list showing the Dimovsky family (a spelling variation of Demofsky) that made the journey. [4] I should add two things, though. First, I haven't found how or if this family is related to my father-in-law. Second, it’s the only family by this name on the manifest, because the “the ship’s purser recorded only 899 of the 1,997 Doukhobor passengers on board”. [5]

Sources:

1. Photo of S/S Lake Superior (built 1884), digital image, Norway – Heritage (http://www.norwayheritage.com : accessed 8 January 2014).

2. William W. Demoskoff, “Descendents [sic] of Mikhail (Konkin) Demofski) Demoskoff” (typescript, ca 1980s or 1990s), unpaginated; privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, Hope, British Columbia, 2014. This unpublished work consisting of three typed sheets was researched by William (Bill) Demoskoff. It does not contain supporting documentation for its data. Bill gave the typescript to his son Michael and daughter-in-law Yvonne in the 1990s.

3. “Index to Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists”, Doukhobor Genealogy Website (http://www.doukhobor.org/Shiplists.htm : accessed 8 January 2014).

4. Steve Lapshinoff & Jonathan Kalmakoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928 (Crescent Valley: self-published, 2001), 8.

5. Lapshinoff, Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists 1898-1928, 3.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.