Westwood in the USA

[patagonia]

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me to find a record of a birth of George A Westwood in c1891?

His parents were Willie A Westwood and Mary Ann Westwood nee Airth.  They were only in the US for a few years as we have them in Millom, Cumbria in 1885 and back in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire in 1893 as evidenced by the births of the other children.  I would love to know where they were in America and for how long.  Willie worked on blast furnaces in England and family stories have him working on new steel plants in America.

Any ideas, please??

Pat

[nutkin]

Vital records are registered by the state they were located.  Earlier ones in the local town or city.  You are between census records so it may be hard to find a birth record without the state he was born.  Have you found a record of him getting married in England or a ship record returning to the UK? They could tell where he was born and then it may help to get a record frm the state.

[johnnyboy]

Pat: I searched the Ellis Island and Castle Garden websites, which have records of passenger ship arrivals in New York, for William Westwood. Nothing on either site. However, not all New York arrivals are on those sites, and William and his wife might have entered the U.S. through another port--such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Boston. I think you need to locate Willie Westwood and his wife on a passenger list to narrow the search.

But if I had to pick one state in the U.S. for George A. Westwood's birth circa 1891, given the information about his father's occupation, I would have to pick Pennsylvania, my home state. It was the center of the steel industry at that time, and Pittsburgh, in the western part of the state, is where most of the blast furnaces (and the rest of the steel industry) were located, all being bought up by Andrew Carnegie.

Until 1906, BMDs in Pennsylvania were registered at the county level. There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is in Allegheny County, and the birth records for the county are now located at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. The url of for the BMD page on the library's website is: http://www.clpgh.org/locations/pennsylvania/BirthDeathRecords.html

A lookup by the library is cheap (about 2 and a half pounds). This is what the library has for Allegheny County and several municipalities within it:

Birth Registers

City of Pittsburgh (1870-1905)
Allegheny City (1885-1905)...................This is now part of the city of Pittsburgh
Allegheny County (1893-1905)...............Countywide records begin only in 1893
McKeesport (1892-1905)
Sewickley (1896-1905).
Wilkinsburg (1899-1905)

Slim pickins, as they say. But it's a start. Bear in mind that this is just educated speculation. George might have been born in another state altogether.

Regards,
John

[patagonia]

Thanks for the suggestions, John.  It looks like I have a fair amount of work ahead of me!

Think I'll start with trying to find one of the ships on which they sailed.

Regards,

Pat

[patagonia]

Hi all

I have found them going to the USA

They weny on The City of Rome: Willey in April 1886 and Mary Ann and Willie (11 mths) in October.  There is an immigration record for Birmingham, Alabama in 1890 but it is just for Dad. 

I would love to find them returning to UK though which thy must have done bet late 1891 and 1893.  Any suggestions

[johnnyboy]

Hi Pat: Glad you found them. Could you tell which port they entered through? That might give a hint about where George was born. I would think Birmingham, Alabama.

When I was in elementary school near Pittsburgh, we learned that Birmingham, Ala. was called the Pittsburgh of the South. Smug in our knowledge that no place on earth had more steel mills than Pittsburgh and that no place poured as much steel as Pittsburgh did, we, of course, looked down our noses at that association. In our minds, it was the equivalent of a dwarf claiming the same ancestry as a giant.

What I did not know was that Birmingham's iron and steel industry had a long history. You can read more about Birmingham and its industry and find links here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham%2C_Alabama

One website I liked is Birmingham Rails, which covers the railroad and industrial history of Birmingham: http://www.bhamrails.info/
If you click on the 1935 Rail Map, you'll be taken to a page that has links to sections of the map where particular furnaces and mills were located. Perhaps one of them is what Willie Westwood worked on.

About a passenger list for the Westwoods' return to England: Those lists are at the National Archives in Kew. They are being digitized and put online, supposedly beginning late 2006 (isn't that now !) and through 2007. I posted information about them on the Emigrants page: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,178542.0.html

Not sure how you might check to see if George was born in Alabama. But I might have some news in a few days.

Regards,
John

[patagonia]

Thanks John

They entered through New York in 1886 but I think that George must have been born in Birmingham Alabama because of the immigration record there being nearer the time of his birth.  The record only seems to cover Willey and not his wife and son.  Isn't that a bit odd?  They were certainly there by then.

Thanks for the links: I will have a look at them today.

Thanks for your help

Regards,

Pat