Thanks all, I knew there had to be something. (Sorry for the typo - bifocals weren't working that day.) Mary Ann > From: rwayne724@verizon.net > To: banat@rootsweb.com > Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:06:25 -0500 > Subject: Re: [BANAT-L] BANAT Digest, Vol 5, Issue 27 > > YES, go to the Ballinstadt Emigration Museum, it is wonderful. > > HAMBURG PORT OF IMMIGRANT DREAMS > Ballin-Stadt Emigration Museum Hamburg > Many families can trace their ancestry to the successive waves of > immigration from Europe. Seeking religious freedom, escape from famine, war > or persecution, the chance for riches or just the opportunity for something > better. Before 1850 much of the immigrant ships which carried the hopefuls > from Germany embarked from ports in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Bremen. In 1847 > the HAPAG shipping line "Hamburg American Packet Company" was founded in the > northern Germany port city of Hamburg. Convenient to reach by the Elbe River > from the east and by railroad, Hamburg rapidly became the most important > emigration port in Germany from 1850 to 1934 and the HAPAG line one of the > most successful shipping companies in the world, renamed the Hamburg-America > Line in 1893. > > Between 1846 and 1857 more than one million Germans emigrated to the United > States, mostly small farmers from Southern Germany and farm laborers from > East Germany and by 1814, over five million had left, most on ships of the > Hamburg America Line (Hamburg Amerika Linie). In 1901 the shipping line > opened an "Immigration City", a complex of buildings with lodging and dining > halls to handle the rush from Eastern Europe, Poland and Russia with room of > 5,000 immigrants at a time in its Immigration Halls (Auswandererhallen) > waiting for the next ship to America, even including a synagogue for the > many Jewish immigrants escaping the Czarist pogroms of Russia. > > In 2007 three reconstructed buildings of the former Immigration Halls of the > Hamburg-America Line re-opened as a museum exhibition dedicated to this past > and named for the company's managing director Albert Ballin who guided it. > The BallinStadt Emigration Museum Hamburg located on Vedel Island in the > harbor complex of the Elbe River (See Hamburg Harbor) with an S-Bahn station > at the Wilhelmsburger Bridge nearby will present photographic displays and > records of Hamburg's part in the immigration story, in both its hopeful and > darker sides. For those seeking their ancestral history from a European past > whose ancestors left Europe from Poland, the Baltic states, Russia and even > Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland between 1836 until 1934, may > discover relatives passed through the portals of the HAPAG > "Auswandererstadt". _________________________________________________________________ New Windows 7: Simplify what you do everyday. Find the right PC for you. http://windows.microsoft.com/shop