This a new category which I hope will spur interest in identifying ships sailing from Amsterdam to other ports throughout the world bringing immigrants from Europe to the "New World" and elsewhere. In many cases, the Captains were required to supply the immigration officials with a ship's manifest listing the passengers and their baggage. In the middle and late 1800s in America these records are abundant, but for ships arriving before 1820, the available records are less frequent. I have precise information about the Captain (Henry A. Blankman)of a ship called the Frau Elisabetha which brought 68 individuals and their families from Amsterdam to Philadelphia in August of 1817, and I shall share this information with interested parties in the near future.

My greatgrandfather came over from Holland in July of 1853. He was 16 yrs. and came with 2 younger brothers. The name is Mares. Could they travel alone at this age?
They went to the Sheboygan part of Wisconsin. I have looked for years for their ship. Any suggestions?

What was your great-grandfather's first name? And, if known, the name of his brothers? That will help with the search.

My great-grandfather's name was Peter Mares, born 28 March, 1837,supposedly landed in NY in July, 1853 with two brothers, John, born 15 Oct., 1945 and Doras (male) no dates. They listed Stockton, Holland as ther place of birth. Father's name was Diedrich and mother's was Johanna Gergen

Barbara,

Thanks for the added info to your first message.

There is a couple of things that stand out to me:

1) Searching the archives of the Netherlands there is no indication of the parents of Peter, John and "Doras". Diedrich is decidedly more of a German first name than a Dutch name. And, I could not find one "Gergen" family in the Netherlands search site that covers all of the Netherlands. The surname of "Gergen" is, like Diedrich, a very un-Dutch surname.

2) That leads me to my next observation: On the 1860 and 1870 census records, Peter states he is Dutch. On the 1880 and 1900 census records he states he is German. Now the surname "Mares" can be found in the Netherlands, almost exclusively in the province of Limburg, near the Belgium border. But, it is also a very German surname. Could it be that the brothers came from Germany and not the Netherlands?

3) There is no town/city name of Stockton in the Netherlands. Not even close. If they were born in the Netherlands then maybe the transcriber writing their birthplace did so phonetically which happened frequently. In whatever case the error ocurred there is 100% surety that no such place exists in the Netherlands.

4) One thing that caught my eye was the name of the younger brother of Peter and John, "Doras". In the province of Limburg, the Netherlands, there was a prominent "Mares" family who had in its line males with the first name of "Joris". Could "Doras" actually be "Joris"?

5) The last name "Mares" was also spelled "Marres", "Meres", and "Marez". There were probably a few more spellings throughout time so keep that in mind when doing your research.

6) I would obtain (if you have not already done so) the Naturalization papers for Peter Mares. It was recorded in the Waupaca Circuit Court on 17 October 1892 in Volume 1, page 468 of the Naturalizations book. Maybe that would shed some light on Peter's place of birth and what ship he came to America on.

7) Post under the Netherlands board (General Board and province of Limburg Board) on Rootsweb and see if there will be some help from others, especially those researchers that are in the Netherlands. They probably know other search sites that may be of help.

I will keep checking some additional sources to see if the question about Peter and his brothers can be answered.

The above suggestions and observations are good. If I may add a couple of small things, when looking in The Netherlands for "John" one should try "Jan" and for "Doras" one might consider Dorus, as in Theodorus. A good example is that the famous Dorus Rijkers was in fact Theodorus. (His brother married a cousin of mine.) Also, while "Stockton" is not to be found in NL, there are two towns named Stokkum, one called Stokhem, Belgium has one named Stokkem, and Germany has two named Stockum. Census takers are notorious for misunderstanding what someone tells them and frequently write things down wrong.