Scoring Big in the Genealogy Online Game

The Morning Light - Sam's Ship to Australia in 1856

MMORPGs - Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games - are huge. Worlds of WarCraft, Everquest (aka EverCrack) and Second Life have caused a lot of people to spend massive amounts of time and money without ever leaving their computers. I understand that some have installed refrigerators and microwave ovens within easy reach, and I expect the next generation of gaming chair will include relief facilities along with motion and force feedback.

I, too, have a MMORPG addiction. I spend more than $250 per year on a subscription to Ancestry.com (a notorious farm where I can get all kinds of evidence without having to go to Salt Lake City or London), and I have a dozen websites I visit regularly to help me with my favorite game: Family History Quest. I collect clues and virtual artifacts and sometimes collaborate with other players to level up quickly.

Yesterday, I scored big, and on my own. Following various clues, I made my way through the Australian section of Cyndi's List to the State Library of Victoria. I've been there before, but this time I searched the Pictures Catalog and hit paydirt. Since I already knew the names of the ships Sam and Martha Isaacs went to Australia on from earlier research, I entered those names on the off-chance I could get pictures of some kind. I found them both.

According to the Unassisted Shipping Index, Sam arrived in Australia in September 1856 aboard the Morning Light. Martha and their two baby daughters, Sarah and Ellen, made the trip in 1858, arriving in Melbourne in April on the Essex.

TheEssex Passenger Barque

This is what the dock in Melbourne would have looked like when Sam arrived in 1856. It probably hadn't changed much by the time Martha arrived a year and a half later.

I've also found numerous pictures of Bendigo (Sandhurst) where the Isaacs Family lived from about 1861 to 1870. This is where Robert Wolff spent his childhood, so it's no wonder he later felt right at home in Clayton, New Mexico.

P.S. I stripped out all the italics because Blogger seemed to have difficulty with HTML tags today. Imagine that the game names and ship names are italic, please.