Ancestry.com has just announced two new databases, from NARA records. They are:

• Honolulu Passenger List, 1900-1953, and
• Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1963-1974

Rita Hayworth

Honolulu Passenger Lists, 1900-1953, consists of more than 1.4 million records of passenger arrivals to Honolulu, Hawaii. Because of Hawaii’s role as a vacation spot and as a stopping point for people migrating from the Eastern side of the globe to the United States, these records can provide invaluable clues about family immigration and travel. Passenger lists include name, birth year, ethnicity, port and date of arrival and departure, ship or airline name and much more.

Included in this collection are some familiar names who visited the island of Oahu from 1900 to 1953:

• Rita Hayworth – For the filming of Miss Sadie Thompson, Rita traveled to Hawaii aboard the ship Lurline and arrived in Honolulu on May 23, 1953.
• Shirley Temple – In 1935, at the age of six, Shirley Temple traveled to Hawaii with her parents, Gertrude and George, for the filming of Curly Top. She returned to Hawaii in 1937 and 1939.
• Cary Grant (Archibald Leach) – Traveling with Mary Astor (Lucille) and her husband, Manuel Del Campo, aboard the Mastonia, in 1938.
• John Wayne – Arrived in Honolulu with wife, Esperanza, aboard the ship Lurline on March 19, 1952 for the filming of Big Jim McLain.

Other famous people found in this collection include Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Laurence Olivier, Spencer Tracy and Bette Midler’s father, Fred Midler, who arrived in Hawaii in 1940 aboard the ship Washington.  Bette was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1945.

Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1963-1974

Ancestry.com also launched Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1963-1974. This first installment of more than 80,000 records consists of letters, formal reports, passports and other key historical documents that verify deaths of Americans overseas.

Included in this valuable collection are some familiar names:

• Judy Garland – Listed as “Judy Garland DeVinko”, Garland died of “barbiturate poisoning, incautious overdose, accidental” in her Chelsea, London, house in 1969.
• Sylvia Plath – The death record states that American author “Sylvia Plath-Hughes” died of “Carbon Monoxide Poisoning (domestic gas) whilst suffering from depression.  Did kill herself” in February 1963 in London.  She is buried in Yorkshire, England.
• Mama Cass – Listed as “Ellen Naomi Cohen,” Mama Cass, from “The Mamas and the Papas,” died of “fatty myocardial degeneration due to obesity,” contrary to rumors she choked on a ham sandwich, while in London in 1974.
• Jimi Hendrix – In 1970, controversy surrounded Jimi Hendrix’s London death, as there was no solid confirmation of his cause of death. This record collection continues to add to the mystery: James Marshall Hendrix’s death record was replaced with a note showing that “J. White” checked out the death record in 1979. Today, the check-out slip is the only document in Jimi Hendrix’s file.
  

  Jimi Hendrix

Once NARA records are digitized, Ancestry.com posts them online for its subscribers. Additionally, NARA archive visitors will have access to the digitized files on-site through Ancestry.com.