This morning, thanks to a distant cousin, I have found the departure and arrival ship logs for my Hammer family! Vaclav Hammer (Hamer), wife Rosalie, and several children.  They departed Hamburg, Germany 31 March 1880 aboard the ship Lessing. They arrived in New York on 16 April 1880.

My cousin located the Hamburg list and this morning I did a page by page search of the Lessing list for New York showed them arriving in April. I was thankful the ship log was only 11 pages long. On Ancestry.com the family name was transcribed Hamers so a search by Hammer did not show them.

If you did not know this, on Ancestry.com you are able to search a ship's passenger list page by page if you know the ship and date it arrived. Even if you only have a ship, month and year, you can still scroll through each date to see if the ship name pops up. In 1880 it took over two weeks to cross in that ship so think about approximately how long it would have taken to cross if you know a departure date and start searching there.

A Madness Monday issue solved thanks to my cousin and Ancestry.com!