Longings from Liverpool

Since I was a child I have heard about our ancestors’ longings to come to America after joining the church in the middle to late 1800s. My dad Jacobson’s ancestors from Denmark somehow got to Liverpool to join their fellow saints in “Zion”. Their oldest daughter had died suddenly just before they left but they packed up their five other children, sold most of their belongings and embarked for America.

Little did they know, after waiting in squalid conditions at the Liverpool port that some passenger would carry the measles on the ship. During the journey four little Jacobson children died in a measles epidemic on board. Three were buried at sea and one little son died just as they sighted land.  He was carried through Ellis Island and buried in an unknown grave in New York City. 

Just that story alone had me longing to see where they left from the Liverpool port on that ominous journey. But there are so many more. Family members from both Rick/Dad’s and my family came with their own stories and left for an unknown life at Liverpool in ships similar to this:

 

Never in their wildest dreams would they have been able to envision their great great grandchildren coming back to that place and being able to get a bird’s eye view of where they left from the Liverpool “Eye”! 

What a thrill and a grand time we had circling three times on this fun ferris wheel to get a good look from the air of where our forefathers had been.

 

 

One building we know was there for sure when they were was the Liver Building, complete with two liver birds at the top that must have been of great significance, although we don’t know what it was. Here is what it looked like from the air:

 

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And here is the inlet from which they sailed into the Atlantic Ocean:

 

 

The actual docks are amazing!  They have been completely refurbished and painted but they are the same ones that would have been there when they left. These docks were used mostly for receivng and sending out goods. At one time Liverpool sent out forty percent of all the products in the world!:

 

There was a Immigrant Museum there downstairs where you could hear the sounds and see the sights and get a taste of what those great grandparents must have experienced.

 

There was a re-creation of one of the sailing ships. This one however was probably the Taj compared to the ones our ancestors could afford:

 

Trunks like this were filled with everything precious and lovely this family owned. So much was sold or left behind!

 

This newly refurbished, magnificent building above was standing over the Liverpool ports where they left.

 

With the hustle and bustle of a now thriving, modern town, Liverpool in the 1800s must have been quite a site to those great ancestors who, because of their faith, determination and courage have changed our lives and the lives of our children and on and on and out of sight…forever!