The Quandary of Passenger List Transcriptions

📜 The Quandary of Passenger List Transcriptions

Passenger List Cover from a 1901 Voyage – Norddeutscher Lloyd

Passenger list transcriptions are one of the most frequent requests we receive at the Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives. Visitors often ask: “When will more lists be searchable?” The answer reflects not only technological progress but also the realities of archival work.

💼 The Challenge of Transcribing Passenger Lists

Passenger lists may look simple — just names in columns — but every one requires careful preparation. The process today involves:

• High-quality scanning with large- and small-format scanners.
• Targeted OCR (optical character recognition) using tools like Snagit to capture text column by column (full-page OCR often produces gibberish).
• Human review and corrections — fonts and printing styles from the 19th and early 20th centuries can confuse even modern OCR software.
• Formatting & linking — every completed list is tied into related pages for ships, ports of call, regions, and passenger classes.

⏱️ On average: about 4 hours for scanning, transcribing, and initial input, plus 1 additional hour for cross-linking. At best, two lists can be completed in a day.

Our Archivist Paul Gjenvick Scanning In More Materials. | GGA Image ID # 2327253589

💸 The Economics of Scale

Here’s the paradox: although these lists are among our most loved artifacts, they are not among our highest-traffic pages. The Archives’ Military section and Ocean Travel section each generate about 40% of our revenue. But while military pages pull massive visitor numbers, ocean travel pages rely more on niche but passionate researchers.

Passenger list transcription is, bluntly, not profitable. Years ago, we calculated the cost per list at $250–$350, far above the revenue they generate. Even today, if this were purely a business decision, transcription would never happen.

🔎 Why We Still Do It

And yet… we do. Why? Because transcribed lists matter.

For genealogists – searchable names unlock family histories otherwise trapped in images.

For historians – patterns of migration, class, and society become easier to trace.

For educators – transcriptions bring clarity for classroom use.

For collectors – pairing searchable names with original scans preserves both utility and artistry.

My sister once joked that I could have made more money flipping burgers at McDonald’s. She wasn’t wrong. But passion for this work keeps me coming back. The Archives exists not for quick returns, but for future generations who will see the value in a project carefully built, list by list.

💬 Final Thoughts

Transcribing passenger lists is painstaking work that blends technology, patience, and love of history. It will never match the scale of our military collections for traffic, but it enriches our Ocean Travel holdings beyond measure. Every transcribed list is a gift to researchers, made possible by thousands of quiet hours — and a little stubborn joy in preserving the past.

🕰️ A Personal Note

Building the GG Archives has never been just a project — it has been a lifelong passion. Passenger lists, menus, photographs, and ephemera may look like scraps of paper to some, but they are fragments of lived history: proof of journeys, ambitions, and identities.

The work has demanded sacrifices — both personal and financial — yet I have never regretted the hours spent preserving these records. My approach has always been simple: persistence, patience, and an unwavering belief that these materials matter.

For genealogists, historians, educators, and collectors, the Archives exists because of that unrelenting dedication. Every scanned page, every transcription, every carefully described cover design is my way of ensuring that the past continues to speak to the present — and to the future.

— Paul K. Gjenvick, MAS, Archivist