Hello all, I'm trying to follow up on a clue given in the crew agreement of the ship Pythomene that shows Arthur Sorensen having previously sailed on the s/s CHINA. My problem is determining which steamship CHINA! He signed on as an O.S. on the Pythomene at Portland, Oregon, on 8 Aug 1905. There was a steamship CHINA owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company that sailed in & out of San Francisco, and the U.S. National Archives in San Bruno has shipping articles for this ship from the right time period, but no Arthur Sorensen was found by the Archives staff at my request. Since Arthur Sorensen was from Cleveland, Ohio, and was only 19 in 1905, I looked for steamers on Lake Erie thinking perhaps he got his start there. This is a possibility: Steamer CHINA of Buffalo Sold Should there have been shipping articles or crew lists for this s/s CHINA, and if so, where might they be now? Thanks, Lisa Petersen

Hello Lisa, I don't think that you have had any answers on this yet. Though Great Lakes isn't my usual haunt, I've had a noodle around for you, but it doesn't look promising. This US website: http://www.archives.gov/research/maritime/great-lakes-crew-lists.htmlsays that"Vessel crew lists for the Great Lakes are available for the 1920s to 1970s for selected ports, and are part of Record Group (RG) 85, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Crew lists exist only for those vessels whose last port of departure was a foreign port; vessels that departed from a U.S. port are not included." So, your Arthur Sorensen is too early for these records. Based on the information in your second posting with the newspaper clipping, there's one *Probable* in the three vessels named CHINA (later CITY OF MONTREAL, O/N 117073) in the Mills List at the "Maritime Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston"http://www.marmuseum.ca/index.php/research/ship-listsbut I don't see any mention of them having crew lists. [Edit: Yes, that one's a Definite! See this newspaper article:http://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/77553/data ] There are possible 1906 master and engineer names here (column 1, second para from bottom):http://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/77567/data Another mention of her here, 2 paras below photo of CITY OF OTTAWA:http://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/documents/scanner/03/08/default.asp?ID=c009 My apologies Lisa: I can find lots of mentions of her using the search term["Merchants Line" "City of Montreal"] using the quotation marks, but not the square brackets,and it's all very interesting, but that doesn't get you any "further forrader" in your quest for Arthur Sorensen on crew lists, Regards,Adi   From: Lisa Petersen via <mariners@rootsweb.com> To: mariners@rootsweb.com Sent: Monday, June 1, 2015 6:27 PM Subject: [MAR] crew lists for steamer CHINA on Lake Erie, 1905 Hello all, I'm trying to follow up on a clue given in the crew agreement of the ship Pythomene that shows Arthur Sorensen having previously sailed on the s/s CHINA.  My problem is determining which steamship CHINA! He signed on as an O.S. on the Pythomene at Portland, Oregon, on 8 Aug 1905.  There was a steamship CHINA owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company that sailed in & out of San Francisco, and the U.S. National Archives in San Bruno has shipping articles for this ship from the right time period, but no Arthur Sorensen was found by the Archives staff at my request. Since Arthur Sorensen was from Cleveland, Ohio, and was only 19 in 1905, I looked for steamers on Lake Erie thinking perhaps he got his start there.  This is a possibility: Steamer CHINA of Buffalo Sold Should there have been shipping articles or crew lists for this s/s CHINA, and if so, where might they be now?  Thanks, Lisa Petersen