The Danish National Archives, or Rigsarkivet, just gave the territory a 34-DVD digitized set of mostly 19th-century Danish West Indies passenger arrival records of immeasurable value to genealogists and historians, according to the Department of Planning and Natural Resources.
The generous gift is a result of over 18 months of persistent follow-up by DPNR’s Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums and collaborative fundraising by the Caribbean Genealogy Library in St. Thomas, according to a statement from DPNR.
“October is nationally celebrated as Archives Month, so the timing could not be better!” said Ingrid Bough, territorial director of Libraries, Archives and Museums, in the statement. “The digital images in this record set will help so many Virgin Islanders to accurately trace the movements of their ancestors,” she said, giving special thanks to the Danish National Archives, and in particular to Senior Researcher Erik Goebel and Danish National Archivist Asbjoern Hellum.
Microfilms of Danish West Indian passport and citizenry registers from 1794 to1847 for Christiansted and St. Thomas Police Station Registers of Persons Arriving and Passports issued for 1805 to 1899, were a valued part of the holdings of the von Scholten Collection at the Enid M. Baa Public Library and Archives as recently as 20 years ago.
“Those microfilms, commonly referred to locally as the passenger arrival lists, were some of the most often viewed by historians and family history researchers,” said Susan Lugo, territorial coordinator for the Archives. “They yielded invaluable information on who traveled to and from the Danish West Indies, relationships between travelers and the frequency of travel generally in the Caribbean.”
If a Virgin Islander’s ancestor traveled by passenger ship to or from St. Thomas in the 1800s, or to or from Christiansted between the years 1794 to 1847, it is likely a record was created documenting that travel, according to DPNR.
The Von Scholten Collection microfilm storage area at the Enid Baa Public Library was compromised during the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and 25 reels of microfilm were irreversibly damaged by high temperatures and humidity levels. John and Delores Jowers made a donation to the Caribbean Genealogy Library to help defray the cost to replace the films. Other donors soon followed.
In the end, the Danish National Archives converted the microfilm images to high resolution digital format on archival quality DVDs at its own expense.
This costly conversion was done “as a gift from the Danish National Archives to the USVI,” according to a cover letter from Rigsarkivet Senior Researcher Erik Goebel. The new digital format will make the information easier for researchers to address. Images can be displayed on any computer and illegible handwriting can be zoomed in on for a more detailed reading. Digital format also means more convenience and accessibility for researchers everywhere.
The entire 34-DVD set will be available soon at the Territorial Archives and the von Scholten Collection at Enid M. Baa Public Library on St Thomas; the Caribbean Genealogy Library on St. Thomas; the Caribbean Collection and Territorial Archives at Florence Williams Public Library in Christiansted on St. Croix; Whim Research Library and Archives in St. Croix; the Elaine I. Sprauve Public Library Special Collections on St. John; the Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Genealogía collection being established at the Universidad Interamericana de Hato Rey, and the Archives and Records Management Unit of the Deputy Governor’s Office in Road Town, Tortola.
