Fellow Passengers

Ship manifests can provide useful information about where relatives were travelling to and from, but they can also show who relatives were travelling with. My third cousin twice removed, Patrick Harper, travelled from Southampton to New York on the RMS Olympic on 21st July 1920.

He was a member of the Bob Pender Stage Troupe, who were conducting a tour of the United States. Also travelling with the troupe was Archibald Leach, who is better known as Hollywood actor Cary Grant.

Josephine Phillips nee Hoornbeek is from a branch of my family which emigrated to the USA in the mid 19th century. Her husband William Phillips was a New York journalist. On the 25th March 1949, they returned to New York on the Queen Mary, after visiting England.

When I first saw the passenger list, I noticed the next passenger was an actor named Ronald Reagan. This is the same Ronald Reagan who went on to become 40th president of the United States. Also travelling on this voyage were actors Joseph Cotten and Patricia Neal, screenwriter and film producer Sam Engel, pianist Paul Wittgenstein and MPs Hector McNeil and Robert Boothby.

Both these images are from the UK and Ireland Outward Passenger Lists, rather than New York Arriving Passenger lists. It is always worth checking both departures and arrivals for interesting fellow passengers.