Are there any Titanic passengers about whom nothing is known

[Tarn Stephanos]

I am interested in the Titanic herself, as opposed to the people who sailed her. It appears as if the general bios of just about all the Titanic's passengers have been assembled over the years, but I suspect there must have been a few in third class whose life story remains a mystery. Were there any 1st or 2nd class passngers about whom nothing is known?

Many thanks

Tarn Stephanos

 

[Colleen Collier]

Tarn. I will take a crack at the answer. There are VERY few people that have not been completely documented by Phil and Brian. Gosh, maybe all of 10, but places like Addis Ababa, aren't the easiest to get to. (Unless you are Lex Luthor).
Now comes the painstaking chore of choosing which photos to use for this greatly anticipated book, and which ones will have to sit in files, but that is all I dare say at the moment.

Colleen

 

[Alan Hustak]

Tarn, absolutely nothing is known about Philippe Wiseman, third class passenger from Quebec City...

 

[angela davie]

help does anyone no any think about william james albert smith age 37 and his wife ellen ann smith age 31.family say that they died on the titanica i have there marriage certificate .cant find death certificate.they were my grate grand parents.please help mary.

 

[Tarn Stephanos]

There seem to be detailed biographies of just about every Titanic passenger and crew member, ranging from details of life experiences to career to final resting place...

Are there any Titanic passengers whose life story still remain a mystery?

Im assuming there must be a few 3rd class passengers whose life stories are total mysteries.

Are all the 1st and second class passengers accounted for; in regards to life bios?
How about 3rd class and crew?

This may be a way to weed out the time travelers..
; )

regards


Tarn Stephanos

 

[Scott Cosso]

I believe in time there will be atleast something about just about everyone on the ship. Ofcourse it may be impossible to find out any info on some of the kids who perished but something should be found out about everyone else.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Scott, I hope you're right. While I wouldn't completely dismiss that idea, I wouldn't get too cozy with it either. Even granting that nobody lives without leaving some traces and records...or recollections...behind, 92 years is plenty of time for both paper and living memory to get lost.

You might be amazed at the number of adults about whom very little is known beyond they fact of they're being there. This isn't really surprising. Most of these people were working or middle class and they had no intention of trying to become famous and cared very little about "making history." They just went on about their daily business with little fanfare, and those who survived were quite content to keep on doing it that way.

 

[Kritina Johnston]

"Are there any Titanic passengers whose life story still remain a mystery?"

What do you call a mystery, and what do you call accounted for? If it's a mere matter of dates and locations of birth and things of that barebones nature, I think every passenger and crew member has something down for them in that department.

But if you're talking about something more intangible, like evidence of personality types, then I've noticed that these sort of bios account for maybe half of what's on the boards.

Just perusing the 3rd class passenger list, I found three names that have the most basic details, but absolutely nothing else:

Sam'aan Youssif
Abi Saab Youssif
Kristina Sofia Laitinen

Not even a messageboard search turns up anything extra...how's that for grim?

There's more I'd like to say about this, but a thunderstorm's heading this way, so I have to jump off for the moment.

 

[Brian J. Ticehurst]

Dear Kritina,
Ref your mail - here is some information that I have just submitted for Kristina Sofia Laitinen:

Lahtinen, Miss Kristina Sofia. Missing. 37-years-old. Helsinki, Finland. Born Riistavese, Kuppie, Finland. Housekeeper going to New York, USA.

(From: Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund Booklet, March 1913)
Number P.201. Laitenen, K. S. Mother received £60.
(From: Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund Booklet, March 1913)
Number P. 509. Lahtinen, R. Mother received £90. Lahtinen A. Mother., received £10.
Sofia was a maid. She was born in the village of Riistavesi, near Kuopio, in 1874. She moved to Helsinki in 1905, where she worked at the School For The Blind for three years. After this job she worked for some time at the Missionary House, and then she took care of merchant K. Koskinen's household as a hostess. She had no opportunity for education, except for confirmation school, but she was described by her friends as a person always willing to learn something new, dedicating her spare time to reading.
In 1911 one of Sofia Laitinen's friend left for the United States, and she lent this friend some money on condition that she would be sent a ticket to the New World. She received the promised ticket in November, but she was unable to make up her mind whether to leave or stay; so the voyage was postponed until April, when she sailed on the Titanic.
Sofia had some strange premonitions of impending disaster. One night he had a dream in which she fell into a well filled with ice-cold water . . . just like that of the Atlantic on that cold April night.
Miss Kristina Sofia Laitinen, 37, a single woman living in New York, was returning to that city from Helsinki, Finland. She boarded the Titanic in Southampton.
Miss Laitinen's body was never found and no compensation claim was ever made.
(From JP)
I will find something on the Youssif's later
Regards

Brian

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Kristina made friends with other Finns on board and shared a cabin with Anna Turja, Helga Hirvonen and her daughter Hildur, who was just 2 years old. After the collision they were told by stewards that nothing was wrong and they should remain in their cabin. They got better advice later from Helga's brother Eino Lindqvist, who arrived from the flooding bow and urged them instead to dress warmly and follow him up on deck. On the way, amid scenes of confusion, they saw Maria Panula with some of her children, weeping hysterically and desperately searching for the others.

At some point the group may have become separated, but Anna and Kristina certainly were together as far as A-Deck on the starboard side, at which point Anna decided it would be safer and warmer to stay there while Kristina favoured moving up to the boat deck. Anna was able to board boat 11 or 13 from A-deck, while The Hirvonens and Helga's brother made it into boat 15. Of this group of Finns, Kristina alone did not survive. Why this should be so is unexplained, except perhaps by Helga's description of their arrival on the boat deck just before the last boat was lowered, in a scene of surging crowds and confusion.

 

[Inger Sheil]

A good deal is known about a great many - if not most - of the passengers. However, there is no centralised published source...many people have pieces of the puzzle, and not all of the material is published (or will be published in the near future - some families have little time for the more commercial or 'circus' aspects of the Titanic community). As Brian and Bob's answers demonstrate, some researchers (Phil G and Brian Meister also spring to mind) have more pieces than others! I don't think there are that many names Phil G has to tick off his list...and Brian Meister has been going after even the most obscure of crewmen, about whom little is known beyond the material in the crew agreements.

 

[Phillip Gowan]

Solomon Bowenur---am doubting he really existed! He has stumped me more than any single individual on Titanic

PG

 

[Iain Stuart Yardley]

Morning all,

I tried to be clever and try to find some info about Solomon Bowenur. I came across this, which I thought was odd. A very long list of names with selected Titanic passenegers inter-mingled amongst them, both survivors and victims, from the Ancestral Trails Historical Society Inc. All the names appear in the Ancestral News Quaterly publication, issues 1 to 4, 1998. Bowenur appears on page 7 of the publication, apparently.

Hope this helps, but I doubt it. A detective I ain't.

Cheers,

Boz

 

[Christine Geyer]

Brian, sorry for posting that here but did you receive my message one or two weeks ago?

Regards
Christine

 

[James V. Bianco]

Well...I tried to be clever with Solomon as well, and actually found him (for all the information that can be obtained)

Here it is:

Solomon BONEMUR (yup another spelling)
age 34 (in keeping with the 1870 birthdate)
sailing from , you guessed it Southampton...
aboard the SS. New York on the 13th of August 1904. He is a US citizen...but unfortunately nothing else is revealed. The spelling throws me as I was thinking Bowenur could easily have been
Boenner and with correct pronunciation could lead a British immigrations person to write Bowenur.But Bonemur baffles me. Im thinking it might be of a french origin, instead of Jewish or German as I originally thought.
Cheers, Jim Bianco
below is the image of Solomon from the manifest: