There were two steamship lines that served the transatlatic route between Liverpool and north America in that year (1869). Both carried mail and immigrants. One was the ALLAN Line and the other the INMAN line. However, the "St Laurence Seaway" was not opened until a hundred years later in the late 1950's and was officially opened by President Eisehower, I believe in 1959. I lived in Montreal at the time and know that transatlantic ships would not go beyond the Lachine Rapids in the St Laurence, near Montreal. The only way that they could have reached Chicago from Montreal is overland, by train or coach. However, both of the above lines dropped anchor at the three (19th Century) eastern canadian immigration ports of Halifax, Quebec City and Montreal. Both lines provided scheduled sail and later steamer service from Liverpool to eastern Canada and then on to Boston, New York and Baltimore. The Canadian Archives has ships manifests on microfilm that may be borrowed. But you have to know the details of the voyage, for example, month of departure in Liverpool or the month of arrival at a canadian port and If possible the name of the ship. I suspect that, as an alternateroute, they may have gone from Liverpool to NYC and up the Erie Canal to Cleveland (which I believe existed at the time) and then overland to Chicago or directly by rail from New York to Chicago. Do you have details on your family's transatlantic voyage. You may have to work the dates backwards from their arrival in Chicago, if that is at all possible. The other thing that is sometimes helpful is anecdotal information that survived in family lore, such as a death during the voyage or ship mishaps like broken rudder or broken propeller shaft which happened frequently.These events are sometimes recorded in the local newspapers and help in pinpointing the name of the ship. The archives here have copies of the Halifax, Quebec and Montreal newspapers of the period, which can be consulted. Frank Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Frank Soural qlt@cyberus.ca