Battling Passenger Lists

I took time off today from indexing the 1940 US Census (mainly for Iowa, although I've done other states) and Ohio Marriage Records to scan through several hundreds of pages of New York Passenger Lists.  I'm still trying to locate when my 3rd great-grandfather and his family, including my 2nd great-grandmother, arrived in this country from Germany.  I know it was 1959, as my 2nd great-grandmother was born in 1858, in Germany, and I found them in the 1860 US census.  Since she was born in Dec., I decided to start at the end of 1859 and work backwards.  I've made it back to Nov. 12 without discovering them.  I did discover, however, that it seems like a lot of people from Ireland, Scotand, and Great Britain arrived between then and Dec. 31.

Searching various passenger lists by variations on the name Young (Jung, Junge, Yung, Yunge, etc.) for 1859 has thus far gotten me nowhere, which is why I've resorted to scanning the images.  I have basic ages and my research thus far has lead me to believe that they all emigrated together as a family.  So I'm scanning passenger lists, focusing on the ages of the passengers, looking for children under the age of 10, which is what the family group consisted of at that time.  Hopefully, I'll eventually be successful.  I now that not all immigrants came in through New York but the vast majority of them did so it seemed a logical starting point.

In other news, I find that I'm really enjoying the indexing I've been doing.  So far, I haven't come across anyone that I "know" but I'm finding it really interesting to see the various family groupings. The age differences in marriages can be fascinating.  Here's a couple where the husband is 15 years older than the wife and here's a couple where the wife is a decade older than the husband.  I also find it interesting when someone is listed as married but their spouse is not listed at the same address.  I've also encountered a couple of different "households" where the occupants were all listed as Partners, usually at least 3 or 4.  I haven't qute figured that one out yet.