My gggrandfather Jacob Caple b. abt. 1816 in Balt. MD supposedly left his family in Monroe Iowa to go back to Balt. and take a ship to round the cape and go to Calif. He was never heard from again. The story says that the family checked for passenger logs and found a Jacob Kaple on a ship leaving Balt. that sank. This would have had to have been after Feb. 1872 where his signature appears on a document. In the 1880 census his wife is listed as a widow. Is there anywhere I could check for sunk ships in that time period?