A 'Genealogy World' visitor asks ...
Do you have any information on the Annabella, a ship wrecked at the entrance to Port Natal and those on board?
Reply ...
The Annabella was interesting in that she gave the name 'Annabella Bank' to the spot where she was wrecked, 21 January 1856, and it still is marked as such on charts today.
She was a British barque of 199 tons built in 1834 in Port Glasgow; commanded by Capt J Wilson. She was carrying a general cargo when she was lost on the Point side of the channel - and according to some sources, it was this occurrence which resulted in an official enquiry and the then Governor Scott dismissing Milne, the harbour engineer, despite the latter's good service at Port Natal.
No lives were lost in the Annabella incident.
The Natal Mercury 1 February 1856 presented a lengthy report on the wreck under the title 'Loss of the Barque Annabella' and this column has been quoted in Colin Bender's book, 'Who Saved Natal?' p 33 -36. Naturally, there are no mentions of passengers' names in the report but the detail of the conditions and circumstances of the wreck itself are given.
There may well have been other newspaper reports referring to the lives that were saved, but for that you'd need recourse to the original newspapers of the time - not a search you could delegate. Natal newspapers are held at the Natal Society Library, Pietermaritzburg - these are originals not microfilm copies.
Regarding a copy of a passenger list for the Annabella - if one exists at all, it would be in the European Immigration (EI) department records at Pietermaritzburg Archives. These registers are handwritten and often difficult to read. They are in date order, not by name of ship. Have a look on our Genealogy World pages at the article on the European Immigration records for more background on these records, and the card index to the registers which is available at Pietermaritzburg Archives (it is definitely not all-inclusive but can be helpful). The card index is searchable under surnames only.
An alternative is yet another newspaper search for a published passenger list. It's possible that there was added interest in the passengers who survived a shipwreck off the port. Although a number of newspaper passenger lists have been extracted - available at
http://www.genealogyworld.net/rose/natal.html
it is obviously impossible to cover all Natal arrivals in every edition of every newspaper. Very time-consuming.
If the people you are researching settled and died in Natal, you should try a search of the NAAIRS index at www.national.archives.gov.za/ under the relevant full names
The main object would be to find reference to a deceased estate file for the individual/s. For more on this topic see the Beginners Guide on the Main Page Menu of Genealogy World.
