The Emigrant's Guide to Getting to America

Via Slashdot comes news that the United Nations' World Digital Library is now online with hundreds of old maps, books, and other documents available for public perusal.

One map that caught my eye was the Emigrant's Map and Guide for Routes to North America by Gotthelf Zimmermann dated 1853 and printed in Stuttgart, Germany. The reason I found it so interesting was that it showed the route taken by my German ancestors from their homeland to America. My father told me that two brothers emigrated by taking ships from Bremen. The first left in 1835, I was told, and landed in Philadelphia while the second emigrated about 10 years later and made his way to Baltimore. (Or was it the other way around?)

The map shows the route that would have been taken by the ships that carried those two brothers, one of whom you can blame for having an ancestor who annoys people with his blog.

First they leave Bremen and head for the English Channel.



Having traversed the Channel, it was off to the North Atlantic heading south. If you look at that bunch of four lines, you may be able to make out that the second one down is labeled "nach Philadelphia" or "to Philadelphia".



Here you can see the various routes to Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and other harbors.



Many Germans made their way to Wisconsin so what does the Emigrant's Guide have about us?