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This week we take a deeper dive into the Claims and Libels files (In the Matter of the Petition of St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, Owner of the Steamer Eastland, For Limitation of Liability) preserved in the National Archives Catalog. The research revealed a startling omission — a victim missing from the original compilation of Eastland victims and from most later derivative lists (with one exception!)

By cross-checking court filings, obituaries, and family connections, I was able to restore a missing piece of the Eastland story.

This episode is also a tribute to George Hilton, whose Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic remains the cornerstone of Eastland research. His scholarship was unmatched, and like all historians (and genealogists), he knew the work was not complete and invited future scholars to review, correct, and expand on it. By leaving the door open for discoveries like this one, Hilton reminded us that history is never finished — it is a shared effort across generations.

Resources:

• Claims and Libels files, In the Matter of the Petition of St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, Owner of the Steamer Eastland, for Limitation of Liability, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. Records preserved in the National Archives Catalog.
• George Woodman Hilton, Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), Internet Archive
• Eastland Disaster Victims: A Virtual Cemetery. Find a Grave.

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