Mary Ellen Greenwood passenger ship Rhynland, Liverpool to Philadelphia 1899.

[element4]

I have been trying to find out about an ancestor, my grandfather's sister, Mary Ellen Greenwood, born in Salford, England on 25th June 1869.  She is on the English censuses in 1871, 1881 and 1891, living with her parents.  After that there are no records for her; I can't find a marriage record or censuses or anything, but there is an emigration record that could be her. 

Mary Greenwood age 30, birth date 1869, Servant, departure date 27/9/1899 from Liverpool, England to Philadelphia, USA.  The ship name is Rhynland, master Doxrud.

It does fit, as I know that at least one of her sisters was a domestic servant "in service".

I think Mary Ellen Greenwood must at some stage have married in America and had children, as I have done an autosomal DNA test and share quite a lot of DNA with people in America (68 centimorgans with one, which is a similar amount as a known DNA match of a descendant of another of my grandfather's siblings).

[Erato]

Here's that passenger list.  Mary Greenwood was already married although I don't see her husband on the boat with her.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GPBF-9YMC?i=512&cc=1921481

[element4]

I just got a page asking me to register, and then when I tried it said  "This site does not support the current version of your web browser".  I tried anyway and it asked me to specify my birthdate, even though I already had done.

[Erato]

Here's a snippet:

[RJ137]

Here is the index card for her from the passenger list

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Passenger List Index Cards, 1883-1948

Link: http://www.rootschat.com/links/01mq7/

[*Sandra*]

The other half of that passenger list says she was going to a sister ? Reilly - 124 S Firth/Forth Street 
(sorry couldn't quite read it)

Sandra

[element4]

Thanks for that.  If she is a wife and from Halifax, it is almost certainly the wrong person.  The document I found on Ancestry said she was a servant, it was a different document, but it does seem to be the same people as on the Ancestry document where she is listed as a servant, she is also listed between Thomas Darby, labourer and Mary Mines, servant.  Also her age, 30, is in the column for single people not the column for married people.  So the two documents show different information, one that she was married and the other that she was single and a servant.  But as far as I know, my great aunt was last living with her parents in Hollingworth, near Manchester, not Halifax, and that was on the 1891 census, so she might have been living as a servant in Halifax immediately before travelling...

Greenwood was a very common name in West Yorkshire and nearby, so lots of false leads.  I thought the combination of her age, birth year, disappearance from English records, and likelihood that she was a servant, might mean I had the right person.

[hanes teulu]

Have you discounted 1901 Census  (RG13  3803  100  30)
Mary Ellen Willis, age 31, Frame Tenter Cotton Mill, born Salford - living in Hollingsworth.

Struck by the similarity of occupation to 1891

There's a civil marriage of a John William Willis to a Mary Ellen Greenwood, Derbyshire, Sep Qtr, 1897

[element4]

Have you discounted 1901 Census  (RG13  3803  100  30)
Mary Ellen Willis, age 31, Frame Tenter Cotton Mill, born Salford - living in Hollingworth.

Struck by the similarity of occupation to 1891

There's a civil marriage of a John William Willis to a Mary Ellen Greenwood, Derbyshire, Sep Qtr, 1897

Thank you for finding that.  I had searched but didn't find it.  It does sound like her.  Hollingworth is the area of outer Manchester where Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire and I think maybe even Yorkshire join, and this family lived in that area.