Genealogy Resources
Immigration Records,
Ships & Passenger Lists
Immigration records, also known as "ship passenger arrival records,"
may provide genealogists with information such as:
- one's nationality, place of birth
- ship name and date of entry to the United States
- age, height, eye and hair color
- profession
- place of last residence
- name and address of relatives they are joining in the U.S.
- amount of money they are carrying, etc.
If an ancestor immigrated to the United States after 1820, you may find him on the passenger list of the ship on which he arrived. Passenger arrival records are on microfilm at the National Archives. Immigrant and Passenger Arrivals is an online catalog of microfilmed passenger indexes and lists. The National Archives will search passenger indexes and lists for you. For records that are indexed, you must provide the full name of the passenger, port of entry, and approximate date of arrival. For unindexed records through 1892, you must provide the full name of the passenger, port of entry, and either the name of the ship and approximate date of arrival or the port of embarkation and exact date of arrival. For unindexed records after 1892, you must provide the full name of the passenger, port of entry, name of ship, exact date of arrival, and names and ages of accompanying passengers, if any. There is no index for New for the periods 1847-1896 and 1949-present.
Early records relating to immigration originated in regional customhouses. The U.S. Customs Service conducted its business by designating collection districts. Each district had a headquarters port with a customhouse and a collector of customs, the chief officer of the district.
From 1607-1776, most immigrants settled in the colonies and were not required to document their arrival. An exception is the records for the arrival of about 40,000 Germans in Pennsylvania from 1727-1808.
An act of March 2, 1819 (3 Stat. 489) required the captain or master of a vessel arriving at a port in the United States or any of its territories from a foreign country to submit a list of passengers to the collector of customs, beginning January 1, 1820. The act also required that the collector submit a quarterly report or abstract, consisting of copies of these passenger lists, to the Secretary of State, who was required to submit such information at each session of Congress. After 1874, collectors forwarded only statistical reports to the Treasury Department. The lists themselves were retained by the collector of customs. Customs records were maintained primarily for statistical purposes.
On August 3, 1882, Congress passed the first Federal law regulating immigration (22 Stat. 214-215); the Secretary of the Treasury had general supervision over it between 1882 and 1891. The Office of Superintendent of Immigration in the Department of the Treasury was established under an act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1085), and was later designated a bureau in 1895 with responsibility for administering the alien contract-labor laws. In 1900 administration of the Chinese-exclusion laws was added. Initially the Bureau retained the same administrative structure of ports of entry that the Customs Service had used. By the turn of the century it began to designate its own immigration districts, the numbers and boundaries of which changed over the years.
In 1903 the Bureau became part of the Department of Commerce and Labor; its name was changed to the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization when functions relating to naturalization were added in 1906. In 1933 the functions were transferred to the Department of Labor and became the responsibility of the newly formed Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Under President Roosevelt's Reorganization Plan V of 1940, the INS was moved to the Department of Justice.
For a history of U.S. immigration laws see Legislative History 1790-Present index, listing all major US immigration and naturalization laws, with their legal citation, and a link to a list of each law's major provisions.
19th Century Shipping Lines
- 1840: Cunard, in Great Britain
- 1847: Hapag (an acronym for "Hamburg-Amerikanishce Packetfahrt-Aktien Gesellschaft"), or Hamburg American Line, in Germany
- 1857- Lloyd, in Germany.
- 1869: White Star, in Great Britain
- 1872: Red Star Line, in Belgium
- 1873: Holland-America Line, in the Netherlands.
- Access to Archival
Databases (AAD). NARA's searchable database containing
electronic records. The following topics have specific
genealogical sources in AAD: Passenger lists of immigrants to
the Port of New York 1846-1851, WWII POWs and casualties, Korean
War POWs and casualties, Japanese-American internees, Vietnam
War casualties, and more.
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Alien Registration Records. Immigration and Naturalization
Service. Alien Registration began in August 1940, as a program
intended to fingerprint and create a record for every
non-citizen within the United States. Alien Registration Forms,
1940-1944, were microfilmed and remain in the custody of DHS.
Beginning in 1944, Alien Registration records became the
foundation document in a new series of INS records, the Alien
Files, or A-Files. After April 1, 1944, INS maintained an
individual case file on each immigrant to the United States,
containing all papers, records, and documents relating to that
immigrant. A-Files remain in DHS custody and are subject to the
Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts.
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Ancestry's Immigration Collection Includes passenger
indexes (some with images from the microfilm) for New York
(1820-1850; 1851-1891 with images), Boston (1821-1850; 1891-1943
with images), Baltimore (1820-1872; Dec 1891-1948 with images),
Philadelphia (1800-1850; 1883-1945 with images), New Orleans
(1820-1850), and San Francisco (1893-1953 with images), plus
some smaller ports and some naturalization records. Subscription
product from Ancestry.com.
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Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins:
Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. Boston,
Massachusetts: New England Genealogical Society, 1995-
- Andrews, William Loring. The Iconography of the Battery
and Castle Garden. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901.
- Arbeiter, Nancy Levin. "Castle Garden, the Barge Office, and
Manhattan's Piers." NGS NewsMagaine, (April/May/June
2006): 16-20.
- Arbeiter, Nancy Levin. "The Port of New York Before Ellis
Island." AVOTAYNU: The International Review of Jewish
Genealogy. 21 (Fall 2005): 27-34.
- Bagger, Louis. "A Day in Castle Garden." Harper's New
Monthly Magazine. 42 (March 1871): 547-57.
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Baltimore Passenger Lists Online Index 1820-1872. Indexes
approximately 227,000 individuals who arrived in Baltimore from
foreign ports between September 2, 1820 and 29 February 1872.
Subscription product form Ancestry.com.
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Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1892-1948. Subscription product
from Ancestry.com.
- Bentley, Elizabeth P., transcriber and Michael H. Tepper,
editor. Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Baltimore
1820-1834. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing
Co., 1982, reprinted 1999. This book contains the names of about
50,000 passengers (listed alphabetically) who arrived in
Baltimore from 1820-1834, and indexes all of the available
Baltimore lists for this period: the State Department
Transcripts, Quarterly Abstracts and the surviving original
lists. About 75% of the passengers were German, many of the rest
were British or Irish. The book is available at many libraries
or click on the title for ordering information.
- Bentley, Elizabeth P., transcriber. Passenger Arrivals at
the Port of New York, 1820-1829; From Customs Passenger Lists.
Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999. This
book contains the names of more than 85,000 passengers (listed
alphabetically) who arrived in New York from 1820-1829 taken
from a direct transcription of the original microfilmed
passenger lists (NARA roll 1 thru part of roll 13 of M237).
- Bentley, Elizabeth P., transcriber. Passenger Arrivals at
the Port of New York, 1830-1832; From Customs Passenger Lists.
Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000. A
sequel to the above book, and arranged in the same way, this
volume contains the names of about 65,000 passengers who arrived
in New York from 1830-1832. Coverage is for part of roll 13 thru
part of roll 18 of NARA microfilm series M237.
- Bentley, Elizabeth P., transcriber and Michael H. Tepper,
editor. Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Philadelphia
1800-1819. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1986. This book contains the names of about 40,000 passengers
(listed alphabetically) who arrived in Philadelphia from
1800-1819. Most of the passengers were from Great Britain
(especially Northern Irleand) and Germany.
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Boston, Massachusetts Passenger Arrival Records, 1820-1943.
- Boyer, Carl. Ship Passenger Lists, National and New
England (1600-1825). Newhall, CA: C. Boyer, 1977. Covers
Lancour entries 1-71 (See Lancour listing below).
- Boyer, Carl. Ship Passenger Lists, New York and New
Jersey (1600-1825). Newhall, CA: C. Boyer, 1978. Covers
Lancour entries 72-115. (See Lancour listing below)
- Boyer, Carl. Ship Passenger Lists, Pennsylvania and
Delaware (1641-1825). Newhall, CA: C. Boyer, 1980. Covers
Lancour entries 116-197. (See Lancour listing below)
- Boyer, Carl. Ship Passenger Lists, the South (1538-1825).
Newhall, CA: C. Boyer, 1979. Covers Lancour entries 198E-243.
(See Lancour listing below)
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Bremen (Germany) - New York Passenger Lists - Search the
Bremen Chamber of Commerce's database of passenger lists
1920-1939, of over 120,000 passengers.
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Brownstone, David M., Irene M Franck and Douglass L Brownstone.
Island of hope, island of tears. New York : Rawson,
Wade Publishers, 1979. Personal accounts by immigrants from
various countries who passed through Ellis Island.
- "By Hook or by Crook: How Wondrous, How Inventive Were the
Schemes Devised to Take Advantage of Naive Entering Immigrants."
Der Blumenbaum, 24, 3 (January, February, March 2007),
110-113.
- California Bound 1848 - 1873 Ship Passenger Lists Wagon Train Lists Isthmus of Panama Passenger Information. "This site contains passenger lists for ship and wagon train passengers traveling to California between 1848 and 1873. The lists are transcribed from microfilm of the New York Daily Times, the New York Herald, the New Orleans Picayune, the Panama Star, the Panama Herald, and the Boston Daily Evening Transcript."
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California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953.
Passenger lists of those arriving in San Francisco, California,
1893-1953. Passenger lists of those arriving in San Francisco,
California. Corresponds to NARA Publication M1410: Passenger
Lists of Vessels Arriving at San Francisco, CA, 1893-1953.
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Canadian Immigration Records, 1925-1935. The National
Archives of Canada holds immigration records from 1865 to 1935.
The names of immigrants arriving from overseas are recorded in
passenger lists. Those arriving from or via the United States
are recorded in border entry lists. A series of old nominal
indexes exist for the 1925 to 1935 records. In cooperation with
the National Archives of Canada, the Pier 21 Society in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, has input the information from the passenger list
indexes into this database. Also included are border entries for
individuals whose surname starts with the letter C.
- Carmack, Sharon DeBartolo. The Family Tree Guide to
Finding Your Ellis Island Ancestors. Cincinnati, Ohio:
Family Tree Books, 2005.
- Castle Garden Immigrant
Database Online. CastleGarden.org offers free access to an
extraordinary database of information on 10 million immigrants
from 1830 through 1892, the year Ellis Island opened. Over 73
million Americans can trace their ancestors to this early
immigration period.
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Changing Immigrant Names.
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Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Complete Book of Emigrants: A
Comprehensive Listing Compiled from English Public Records of
those who took Ship to the Americas for Political, Religious,
and Economic Reasons; of Those Who Were Deported for Vagrancy,
Roguery, or Non-conformity; and of those who were Sold to Labour
in the New Colonies. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical
Publishing Co., 1993.
- Colletta, John Philip. "Births and Deaths at Sea."
Ancestry Magazine (January-February 2003).
- Colleta, John Philip. "Technology Impact on Immigrant
Records," Ancestry Magazine (November/December 2001), pp.
29ff.
- Colletta, John Philip. They Came in Ships. 3rd ed.
Orem, Utah: Ancestry, Inc., 2002..
- Colletta, John Philip. "US Passenger Records -- What Are
They, Really?" Family Chronicle Magazine
(November-December 2002) pp. 19ff
- The Complete Book of Emigrants, 1607-1776 & Emigrants in
Bondage, 1614-1775. Family tree maker. [Novato, CA]:
Brøderbund Software, 1996.
With approximately 140,000 names, this work contains
the most comprehensive list ever published of the men,
women, and children who emigrated from England to
America between 1607 and 1776.
- Conway, Lori. Forgotten Ellis Island: The Extraordinary
Story of America's Immigrant Hospital. Book and film.
Photos and history of the Ellis Island hospital that served
immigrants, and tells the story of several patients there.
- Consolidated Immigrant
Arrival Records from Various Ports. For one-step searching
by Stephen P. Morse.
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Country of Origin of Immigrants and Persons Naturalized,
1820-1996. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
- Crume, Rick. "Finding Immigrants Online." Family
Chronicle Magazine (January/February 2006) pp. 29-32.
- Dobson, David. Transatlantic Voyages, 1600-1699.
Baltimore, Maryland: Clearfield Co., 2006, 2004. A
reconstruction of English passenger lists from shipping records
in various British archives and libraries.
- Dollarhide, William. Map Guide to American Migration
Routes, 1735-1815. North Salt Lake, Utah: Heritage Quest,
1997, 2003. Identifies the important overland routes.
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Early Immigrant Inspection along the US-Mexico Border
- Ellis Island -
American Family Immigration History Center (1892-1924
arriving passenger records)
- Family Tree Maker Immigrants to America, 1600s-1800s,
Immigration Records. Family tree maker, CD #352. [S.l.]:
Genealogy.com, 2000.
This CD identifies 200,000 immigrants who arrived at Atlantic
and Gulf coast ports between the 17th century and the 19th
century. Based on twenty volumes of ships' passenger lists
published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, it provides
such details as name, age, occupation, place of origin, port of
departure, name of vessel, names of accompanying family members,
and date and place of arrival.
- Filby, P. William, and Mary K. Meyer. Passenger and
Immigration Lists Index: A Guide to Published Arrival Records of
about 5000,000 Passengers Who Came to the United States and
Canada in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries.
1st edition. 3 vol. plus annual supplements. Detroit: Gale
Research Co., 1981.
- Filby, P. William, ed., Passenger and Immigration Lists
Bibliography, 1538-1900: Being a Guide to Published Lists of
Arrivals in the United States and Canada. Detroit: Gale
Research Corp., 1981.
- Filby, P. William & Mary K. Meyer. Passenger and
Immigration Lists Index: Guide to More than 2 Million
Passengers. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1981-2003.
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Finding Immigration Records.
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Finding Passenger Arrival Records at the Port of Boston,
Massachusetts 1820-1943. Compiled by Joe Beine.
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Finding Passenger Arrival Lists & Immigration Records for
Charleston & South Carolina. Compiled by Joe Beine
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Finding Passenger Arrival Records at the Port of Galveston,
Texas. Compiled by Joe Beine .
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Finding Passenger Arrival Records at the Port of Galveston,
Texas. Compiled by Joe Beine .
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Finding Passenger Arrival Records at the Port of New Orleans,
Louisiana. Compiled by Joe Beine.
- Firstmom's
Genealogy Resources Immigrant Ship Passenger Lists. Contains
Italian, German, Irish, Scottish and French immigrants ship
passenger
lists./www.tsm-elissa.org/immigration-main.htm">Galveston
Immigration Database and Texas Seaport Museum.- The database
includes names of passengers and members of their traveling
parties, age, gender, occupation, country of origin, ship name,
dates of departure and arrival, and destination in the United
States. Information is also provided for a small number of ship
arrivals. The ship database includes ship name, type of ship,
master, home port of ship, arrival date at Galveston, port of
departure, destination port, tonnage, number of immigrants, ship
owner, and citation source.
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From Immigrant to Local Citizen: The Ellis Island Story.
Ellis Island served as a federal immigration station for more
than 60 years, from 1892 to 1954. The ancestry of more than 40%
of all Americans can be traced back to this station, as millions
of immigrants arrived to the United States from Europe and
elsewhere, but first processed through Ellis Island. Ellis
Island served a great need when it initially opened its doors,
as a great influx of immigrants had begun to arrive from the
whole of Europe.
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Galveston Immigration Database.
Database with access to 130,000 passengers who landed in
Galveston between 1846 and 1948.
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Galveston Passenger Lists 1896-1948 - Subscription product
from Ancestry.com.
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Germans-from-Russia to US & Canadian Ports - a database that
allows you to search by ship or passenger name, port of arrival,
town/country of origin.
- Gilder, Rodman. The Battery. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The Riverside Press, 1936.
- Glazier, Ira A., editor. Emigration from the United
Kingdom to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports.
2 volumes. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2006. Vol. 1,
January 1870-June 1870. Vol. 2, July 1870-December 1870.
- Glazier, Ira P. and William Filby. Italians to America:
Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, 1880-1900.
Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1992-
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Great Lakes Crew Lists.
- Great Ocean Liners.
History of ships in transatlantic crossings.
- Greenwood, Val D. "American Aids to Finding the Home of the
Immigrant Ancestor." Chapter 34 in The Researcher's Guide to
American Genealogy. 3rd edition. Baltimore, Maryland:
Genealogical Publishing Company, 2000.
- Guber, Rafael. "Locating Your Family's Ancestral Town,"
Ancestry. September/October 1998, Vol. 16, No. 5.
- Guzda, Henry P. "Ellis Island a Welcome Site? Only After
Years of Reform," Monthly Labor Review, (July 1986).
- Hall, Charles M. "How to Deal with Boundary Changes in
Eastern Europe." Everton's Family History.
September/October 2000, 12-15.
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Hamburg Emigration Lists - a database of personal data of 5
million people (Russian, German, Jewish, Austrian) who emigrated
via Hamburg, Germany from 1850 to 1934; 80% of whom were
traveling to the United States.
- Hamburg
Passenger Departure Lists.
- Handlin, Oscar, ed. Immigration as a Factor in American
History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959.
- Handlin, Oscar, ed. The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the
Great Migrations that Made the American People. Reprinted,
2d edition enlarged, Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1973.
- Hansen, Marcus and John Brebner. The Mingling of the
Canadian and American Peoples. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale
University Press, 1940.
- Harris, Ruth-Ann and Donald M. Jacobs, and Emer O'Keefe.
The Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements
Placed in the Boston Pilot. Boston: New England Historic
Genealogical Society, 1989-96.
- Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American
Nativism, 1860-1925. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1955. Reprint, New York: Atheneum, 1963-1981.
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History, Genealogy and Education. This site, maintained by
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS)
gives information about the Immigration and Naturalization (I&N)
Historical Reference Library collection and services.
- How to Find Your
Immigrant Ancestor - Passenger and Immigration Lists Index..
By Jim Rader.
- The Immigrant Ancestors
Project, sponsored by the Center for Family History and
Genealogy at Brigham Young University, uses emigration registers
to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in
their native countries, which is not found in the port registers
and naturalization documents in the destination countries.
Volunteers working with scholars and researchers at Brigham
Young University are creating a database of millions of
immigrants based on these emigration registers.
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Immigration. Read about "Leaving Home" to "The Crossing" to
"The Arrival in New York City and more.
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Immigration Explorer -- An interactive map of the United
States from the New York Times showing where various
foreign-born groups settled.
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Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930. From Harvard
university Library's Open Collections Program, includes a
variety of interesting materials on immigration.
- inGeneas
Database. The inGeneas Database
contains passenger list records for immigrants arriving at
Canadian ports between 1748 and 1873.
- Immigrant & Passenger Arrivals. 2d ed. Washington,
D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1991.
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Immigrant Ships Ship Descriptions from Various Internet Mailing
Lists List and from Direct Submissions E-mailed to the Owner of
this Web Site.
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Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild - Over 3,800 ships
passenger lists have been transcribed, passenger and crew names
and ship name, departure point etc from all lists can be
searched here.
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Immigrant Visa Files. (1924-1944) Immigrant and
Naturalization Service. The Immigration Act of 1924 established
immigration quotas according to the national origins system, and
as of July 1, 1924, required all aliens arriving at the United
States to present a visa. Immigrant visas were forwarded for
filing at INS Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where they
remain today. Immigrant visas contain valuable genealogical
information, including exact date and place of birth, names of
parents and children, all places of residence for five full
years prior to immigration, and a photograph.
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Immigration and Emigration by Decade, 1901-1990. Immigration
and Naturalization Service.
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Immigration and Naturalization Legislation, 1790-1996.
Immigration and Naturalization Service.
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Immigration & Ships Passenger Lists Research Guide - The
goal of this guide is to help in research of United States
immigration records and ship's passenger lists, both on-line and
off-line.
- Immigration History
Research Center. Offers resources focusing on eastern,
central, and southern European and Near Eastern ethnic groups.
From the University of Minnesota.
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Immigration to Canada 1925 - 1935. The National Archives of
Canada holds passenger lists from 1865 to 1935 (Record Group 76,
C 1). These lists constitute the official record of immigration
to Canada in that period. A series of old nominal indexes exist
for the period 1925 to 1935. They provide the volumes and page
numbers on which the names of Canadian immigrants appear in the
passenger lists. In cooperation with the National Archives of
Canada, the Pier 21 Society in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has input
the information from the passenger list indexes into this
database.
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Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Ports in
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina 1890-1924
(NARA & FHL Catalog Numbers)
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Index (Soundex) to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at
Baltimore, MD, 1820-1897 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers)
(NARA Publication M327; 171 rolls)
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Index (Soundex) to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at
Baltimore, MD (City Passenger Lists), 1833-1866 (NARA & FHL
Microfilm Numbers) (NARA Publication M326; 22 rolls)
Alternate Microfilm Index: If your ancestor arrived at Baltimore
from 1833-1866 and you did not find anything in the main index
listed above, then you could also try searching this index,
which is for the separately kept Baltimore City Passenger Lists
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Index (Soundex) to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at
Baltimore, MD, 1897-1952 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers)
(NARA Publication T520; 43 rolls)
- Index
to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New Orleans, LA,
1853-1899 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Roll Numbers) (NARA
Publication T527; 32 rolls)
- Index
to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New Orleans, LA,
1900-1952 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers) (NARA Publication
T618; 22 rolls)
- Index
to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, 1820-1846
(NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers) (NARA Publication M261; 103
rolls)
- Index
to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, June 16,
1897-June 20, 1902 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers) (NARA
Publication T519; 115 rolls)
- Index
(Soundex) to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York,
July 1, 1902-December 31, 1943 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers)
(NARA Publication T621; 755 rolls)
- Index
(Soundex) to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York,
1944-1948 (NARA Microfilm Numbers) (NARA Publication M1417;
94 rolls)
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Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Philadelphia,
PA, 1800-1906 (NARA & FHL Microfilm Numbers) (NARA
Publication M360; 151 rolls)
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Index (Soundex) to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at
Philadelphia, PA, January 1, 1883-June 28, 1948 (NARA & FHL
Microfilm Numbers) (NARA Publication T526; 61 rolls)
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International & Passenger Records Collection. A subscription
to this database gives you online access to 22 million records
from more than 25 different databases, including Germans, Irish,
Italians and Russians to America; Dutch Immigrants and English
settlers; Plus Baltimore, Boston, New York, New Orleans and
Philadelphia indexes from about 1820-1850. Subscription product
from Genealogy.com.
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Irish Passenger Lists - to US and Canada - search an
extensive database of Irish passengers arriving (during 1800s)
in US and Canadian ports.
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Irish Passenger Lists, 1803-1806: Lists of Passengers
Sailing from Ireland to America: Extracted from the Hardwicke
Papers. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1995.
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Irish Passenger Lists, 1847-1871: Lists of Passengers
Sailing from Londonderry to American on Ships of the J & J Cooke
Line and the McCorkell Line. Baltimore, Maryland:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988.
- Jones, Maldwyn A. Destination America. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.
- Kapp, Friedrich. Immigration and the Commissioners of
Emigration of the State of New York. 1870. Reprint, New
York: Arno Press and the The New York Times, 1969.
- KinShips.
The passenger vessels of your immigrants ancestors.
- Konvitz, Milton R. Civil Rights in Immigration.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953.
- Kupperman, Karen Ordahl, John C. Appleby, and Mandy Banton.
Calendar of State Papers, Colonial North America and the West
Indies 1574-1739. New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis
Books, 2000.
- Lancour, Harold, comp. A Bibliography of Ship Passenger
Lists, 1538-1825; Being a Guide to Published Lists of Early
Immigrants to North America. 3d ed. New York: New York
Public Library, 1978.
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Library and Archives Canada. "The Passengers Lists"
database, which makes up the majority of the immigration lists
from 1865 to 1935, is the largest database that the Canadian
Genealogy Centre has put online. The database is not indexed,
but it does list the date and location of the port where the
ship landed, the passenger name, the age and sex of the person,
their nationality, and the name of the ship. It includes the
names of all passengers -- returning Canadians, tourists,
visitors, and immigrants en route to the U.S. The list also
includes the names of people who landed at American ports and
who indicated at that time that they were going directly to
Canada.
- Link to Your
Roots - A database provided by the Hamburg State Archives
for searching the Hamburg emigration lists.
- Mariners.
Researching the mariners and ships of the merchant marine and
the world's navies.
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Maritime Timetable Images. Includes lists of ships and
shipping companies.
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Mexican Border Arrival Records Glossary.
- Meyerink, Kory L. "Improved Access to Customs Passenger
Lists." Heritage Quest, May/June 2000, Vol. 16, No. 3,
72-76.
- Meyerink, Kory L. "Rediscovering Passenger Lists."
Ancestry Magazine (Nov/Dec 2001), pp. 21 ff.
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Miscellaneous Atlantic, Gulf Coast & Great Lakes Ports 1820-1873.
Includes links to indexes, online & off.
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Miscellaneous Atlantic Ports Passenger Lists 1890s-1940s
. Online index and digitized images of the passenger lists (Ancestry.com subscription product) includes the following ports:
- Bridgeport, New Haven, and New London, Connecticut 1929-1959
- Gloucester, Massachusetts 1906-1942
- New Bedford, Massachusetts 1901-1942
- Portland, Maine 1893-1943 (plus 1 list from 1891)
- Providence, Rhode Island 1911-1943
- Savannah, Georgia 1906-1945
- Mitchell, Brian. Irish Emigration Lists, 1833-1839:
Lists of Emigrants Extracted from the Ordnance survey Memoirs
for Counties Londonderry and Antrim. Baltimore, Maryland:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1989.
- Mitchell, Brian. Irish Passenger Lists, 1847-1871.
Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988.
- Morgan, George. Our Ancestor's Migration Patterns: The Push
and Pull Effect." Family Chronicle Magazine
(January/February 2006) pp. 34-36.
- Morton Allen Directory of European Passenger Steamship
Arrivals: For the Years 1890 to 1930 at the Port of New York and
for the Years 1904 to 1926 at the Ports of New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. Baltimore, Maryland:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1931, 2001. The directory consists
of arrival records to those major ports mentioned in the title.
A helpful background tool before searching the National Archives
indexes to passenger records.
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Name Changes at Ellis Island: Fact or Fiction?
This article
was originally published in Eastman's Online Genealogy
Newsletter, 13 May 2001.
- National Archives and Records Administration - Immigration
Records
-
New Bedford, Massachusetts Index 1902-1954. Microfilm
catalog numbers; includes passenger lists 1902-1942.
-
New
York, New York, Index to Passenger Lists, 1820-1846. Card
file Index to early New York passenger lists. Corresponds to
NARA publication M261: Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels
Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1846. FamilySearch.
-
New
York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1925-1942. Images
of passenger arrivals in New York Harbor, corresponding to NARA
microfilm publication T715: Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels
Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957. FamilySearch.
-
New
York, Northern Arrival Manifests, 1902-1956. This collection
comprises two record sets from the National Archives: Manifests
of alien arrivals at Buffalo, Lewiston, Niagra Falls, and
Rochester, New York, 1902-1954 (NARA M1480) and Soundex card
manifests of alien and citizen arrivals at Hogansburg, Malone,
Morristown, Nyando, Ogdensburg, Rooseveltown, and Waddington,
New York, July 1929-April 1956 (NARA M1482). These card
manifests, arranged in Soundex order, document over 1,000,000
arrivals. Family Search.
-
New
York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1891. Passenger lists for over
13 million immigrants arriving in New York City from 1820
through 1891. NARA publication M237: Passenger Lists of Vessels
Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. FamilySearch.
-
New York Passenger Lists - 1850-1891. Subscription product
from Ancestry.com.
-
New
York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924.
Name index to lists of 25 million people (not just immigrants)
who arrived at Ellis Island, Port of New York, 1892-1924. In
addition, includes a link to images of arrival lists at the
Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Web site. FamilySearch.
- Novotny, Ann. Strangers at the Door: Ellis Island, Castle
Garden, and the Great Migration to America. Riverside,
Connecticut: The Chatham Press, 1971.
- Olive
Tree Genealogy - Free ship's passenger lists, church
records, land records, family surnames and much more will help
you find that elusive ancestor.
- One-Step Web
Pages, by Steven Morse. A more effective search engine to
access immigration records, census, and vital records, and some
Jewish databases.
- "Opens the Door to Frauds: How Food Is Sold to Immigrants at
Ellis Island," The New York Times, (December 13, 1894).
-
Palmer List of Merchant Vessels. This list consists of
descriptions of merchant vessels, both sail and steam.
- Passenger Lists on the Internet. - Links to ships list and a
short description of each link.
-
Passenger Manifest (1848-1891) Contents. Massachusetts
Archives. Massachusetts officials started recording the names of
immigrants who arrived by ship in January of 1848, a procedure
which continued until July of 1891, when federal records-keeping
programs superseded those of the state. Although immigrants
arrived at numerous Massachusetts ports, the Archives holds
manifests for BOSTON ONLY. These are arranged chronologically
according to the date when the ship arrived in port. The
Archives holds the original manifests as well as the only
microfilm copy available of these Passenger manifests. This
collection has been cataloged as HS3.02/1990X (Registers of
passengers arriving in Massachusetts ports) in the finding aids
of the Massachusetts Archives.
-
Philadelphia, 1800-1850 Passenger and Immigration Lists.
Subscription product form Ancestry.com.
-
Philadelphia Passenger Lists - Index & Images 1883-1945 -
Subscription product from Ancestry.com.
- Pier 21 - Canada's
Historic Soul. Visitors may search
electronically for the basic arrival information of anyone who
immigrated through a Canadian port between 1925 and 1935.
Immigration records of individuals who entered Canada through
Quebec City, Montreal, Halifax and Saint John between 1925 and
1935 may be accessed on microfilm. No online research.
- Pitkin, Thomas P. Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis
Island. New York: New York Univeristy Press, 1975.
- Port of Entries by State or District -- Records
created at each port, dates of those records, where they were
originally filed, and the current National Archives microfilm
publication number (if any).:
-
Portland, Maine Index 1893-1954 (NARA & FHL Catalog Numbers;
includes passenger lists 1893-1943)
- Punch, Terrence. Erin's Sons: Irish Arrivals in Atlantic
Canada, 1761-1853. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
2008. Contains transcriptions of records of Irish arrivals in
Atlantic Canada (Newfoundland, Labrador, Prince Edward Island,
New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) from 1761 to 1853 and includes
sources such as passenger ship lists, census records, newspaper
articles, regimental records, church records, prison records,
burials, and tombstone inscriptions. A bibliography and surname
index round out the book.
-
Records for Passengers Who Arrived at the Port of New York
During the Irish Famine, created, 1977 - 1989, documenting
the period 1/12/1846 - 12/31/1851 - NARA Collection CIR
- Reeves, Pamela. Ellis Island: Gateway to the American
Dream. New York: Dorset Press, 1991.
- Registers of Vessels Arriving at the Port of New York 1789-1919
lists on microfilm of New York ship arrivals by name of ship and
date of arrival (no passengers are listed)
-
Requesting Your Ancestor's Naturalization Records from INS.
A guide by Dennis Piccirillo.
- Resources for
Finding New York Passenger Lists 1847-1897..
- Sachtjen, Maude. Immigration to Wisconsin: A Thesis.
Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1928.
-
Portland, Maine Index 1893-1954 (NARA & FHL Catalog Numbers;
includes passenger lists 1893-1943)
- Ramirez, Bruno. Crossing the 49th Parallel: Migration
from Canada to the United States, 1900-1930. Ithaca, New
York: Cornell University Press, 2001.
-
Savannah, Georgia Passenger Lists 1906-1945. Includes index
information
- Schecter, Jack. "Migration of Canadians to the United
States." Everton's Genealogical Helper. 60, 2
(March/April 2006) p. 41-47.
- Szucs, Loretto Dennis. Ellis Island: Tracing Your Family
History through America's Gateway. Provo, Utah: Ancestry,
2000.
-
Searching the Ellis Island Database in One Step - 1892-1924.
- The Ships List.
TheShipsList website, online since August 1999, will help you
find your ancestors on ships' passenger lists. We also have
immigration reports, newspaper records, shipwreck information,
ship pictures, ship descriptions, shipping-line fleet lists and
more; as well as hundreds of passenger lists to Canada, USA,
Australia and even some for South Africa.
-
Ships Passenger Lists - To USA. Olive Tree Genealogy.
-
Ships Passenger Lists - Australia - State of Victoria:
search the Public Record Office of Victoria's Index of Inward
Passenger Lists 1852-1911.
-
Smith, Marian L. "By Way of Canada: U.S. Records of Immigration
Across the U.S.-Canadian Border, 1895-1954 (St. Albans Lists)"
Prologue Magazine. Fall 2000, Vol. 32, No. 3
-
Supplemental Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at
Atlantic and Gulf Coast Ports (Excluding New York), 1820-1874
(NARA & FHL Microfilm Roll Numbers) (NARA Publication M334;
188 rolls)
- Svedjda, George J. Castle Garden as an Immigrant Depot,
1855-1890. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1968.
- Tepper, Michael. American Passenger Arrival Records: A
Guide to the Records of Immigrants Arriving at American Ports by
Sail and Steam. Updated and enlarged edition. Baltimore,
Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001, 1993.
- Tepper, Michael. New World Immigrants: a Consolidation of
Ship Passenger Lists and Associated Data from Periodical
Literature. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1979.
- Tepper, Michael. Passengers to America: A
Consolidation of Ship Passenger Lists From the New England
Historical and Genealogical Register. Baltimore:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977.
- Tepper, Michael. Emigrants to Pennsylvania, 1641-1819: a
Consolidation of Ship Passenger Lists from the Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography. Baltimore: Genealogical
Publishing Co., 1978
- Tepper, Michael. Immigrants to the Middle Colonies: a
Consolidation of Ship Passenger Lists and Associated Data from
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.
Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978
- "Thirteen
Reasons Our Ancestors Migrated." From Ancestry.com.
- The Transatlantic
Crossing. This is the story about how the majority of
emigrants going to America would travel. It also gives some
insight to the amazing development in how ships were constructed
and the transportation arranged.
-
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Resources for
Teachers and Students.
-
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services History. It will
contain information about the Immigration and Naturalization
(I&N) Historical Reference Library collection and services,
documents concerning the history of the Service, immigration
law, procedure, AND immigration stations, as well as
instructions for historical and genealogical research using
records of the former INS.
- U.S. Department of State. Passengers Who Arrived in the
United States September 1821-December 1823. Baltimore,
Maryland: Clearfield Company, 2005, 1969.
-
United States, Famine Irish Passenger Index, 1846-1851.
Records for passengers who arrived at the Port of New York
during the Irish Famine 1846-1851. Created by the Balch
Institute for Ethnic Studies, Center for Immigration Research.
FamilySearch.
-
U. S. National Archives. E-mail request for NATF Form 81.
E-mail address from which you can order copies of NATF Form 81,
“Order for Copies of Ship Passenger Arrival Records.”
-
U. S. National Archives. Immigrant and Passenger Arrivals.
Online version of the National Archives microfilm catalog of
passenger lists and indexes.
- U.S. Ports of
Arrival and Their Available Passenger Lists 1820-1957.
A Genealogy Guide by Joe Beine. This is a list of nearly
every port in the United States that has published immigration
records (passenger arrival lists) 1820-1957, organized by state.
Included are Canadian border crossing records, which are called
"St. Albans Lists" and are listed here under the state of
Vermont (even though the actual border crossing may have taken
place elsewhere). Mexican border crossing records are also
listed here for California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The
rest are for ship passenger arrival records.
- US Ports of
Entry & Their Available Passenger Lists - A list of nearly
every US port.
-
U.S. Ports of Entry in Canada-St. Albans Lists Soundex.
Hosted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and
provides information port of entry cards. This site also
contains images of a blank Soundex manifest card and a Canadian
Border card manifest. Under a US-Canadian agreement signed in
1894, immigrants destined to the United States were inspected
and recorded by US immigrant inspectors at Canadian ports of
entry. Until 1917, records of all entries at all Canadian ports,
Atlantic and Pacific, were filed in the Soundex index at
Montreal, now known as the St. Albans Lists. After 1917, entries
at land border ports WEST of the Montana/North Dakota state line
were filed in Seattle. No centralized set of records was
maintained after June 30, 1929, and after that date records will
be found only among the records of the immigrant's actual port
of entry along the US-Canadian Border.
- What Passenger Lists Are Online? Internet Sources for
Transcribed Passenger Records & Indexes from German Roots.
-
What You'll Learn from Passenger Lists - by Myra Vanderpool
Gormley, CG on Genealogy.com.
-
Wood, Virginia Steele.
Immigrant Arrivals: A Guide to
Published Sources. Revised. (Washington, DC: Library of
Congress, Local History & Genealogy Reading Room, n.d.).
- Wyman, Mark. Round Trip to America: The Immigrants Return
to Europe, 1880-1930. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press, 1993.
- Yans-McLaughlin, Virginia. Ellis Island and the Peopling of America: The Official Guide. New York: New Press; Distributed by W.W. Norton, 1997.
Additional Resources -- Ethnic Groups
- Adams, Raymond D. An Alphabetical Index to Ulster
Emigrants to Philadelphia 1803-1850. Baltimore, Maryland:
Clearfield Co., 1992, 2004 reprint
-
Armenian Immigrants
- Avakian, Linda L. Armenian Immigrants: Boston
(1891-1901), New York (1880-1897). Camden, Maine: Picton
Press, 1996.
- Baca, Leo. Czech Immigration Passenger Lists. Various
Ports (1847-1871). 4 volumes. Richardson, Texas: 1983-1991.
-
Chinese Immigrant Files. Responsibility for enforcement of
US Chinese Exclusion law transferred to the Immigration and
Naturalization Service in 1903, and continued until repeal of
the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. The old Chinese Service
transferred into INS along with it's records, which INS
maintained as a separate set until 1908. Those files on Chinese
matters kept separate from general immigration files at
Washington, D.C., until 1908 are referred to as Segregated
Chinese Files, and are today found at the National Archives in
Washington, D.C.
-
Chinese Immigration and Chinese in the United States: Records in
NARA's Regional Archives
-
Czech Immigrants (from Bohemia, Moravia or Silesia)
- Davis-White, Jeanne. Polish Arrivals at the Port of
Baltimore, 1880-1884. Baltimore: Historyk Press, 1994.
- Diestler, Martin A. "Tracing Emigrants Through Hamburg
Police Records" P.G.S.A. Newsletter, Fall 1989, Vol. XII,
No. 2, 34.
- Dobson, David. Irish Emigrants in North America
[1775-1825] Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Baltimore,
Maryland: Clearfield Co., 1994, 1995, 2004 reprint.
- Dobson, David. Irish Emigrants in North America
[1775-1825]. Part Four and Part Five. Baltimore, Maryland:
Clearfield Co., 1998, 1999, 2004 reprint.
- Dobson, David. Irish Emigrants to North America
[1670-1830] Part Six. Baltimore, Maryland: Clearfield Co.,
2003.
- Dobson, David. More Scottish Settlers, 1667-1827.
Baltimore, Maryland: Clearfield Company, 2005.
- Dobson, David. Scottish Highlanders on the Eve of the
Great Migration, 1725-1775: The People of Argyll. Baltimore,
Maryland: Clearfield Company, 2005.
-
Douglas, Lee V. Danish Immigration to America: An Annotated
Bibliography of Resources at the Library of Congress.
Research Guide No. 28. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress,
Local History & Genealogy Reading Room, n.d.).
-
Douglas, Lee V. A Select Bibliography of Works:
Norwegian-American Immigration and Local History. Research
Guide No. 6. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Local History
& Genealogy Reading Room, n.d.).
- Dutch
Immigrants in U. S. Ship Passenger Manifests 1820-1880 (to 1894
for New York) (online databases, books & a CD-Rom)
-
German Immigrants: Lists of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New
York 1847-1871 (books - these do not include every ship,
only a small percentage)
- Germans
to America 1850-1897 (books, CD-Roms & an online database)
- Glazier, Ira A. & Michael H. Tepper. The Famine
Immigrants: Lists of Irish Immigrants Arriving at the Port of
New York, 1846-1851. 7 volumes. Baltimore, Maryland:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1983-1986.
- Glazier, Ira A. Migration from the Russian Empire: List
of Passengers Arriving at New York (1875-1886). 2 volumes.
Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1995.
- Glazier, Ira A. and P. William Filby. Germans to America.
(1850-1897). 67+ volumes. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly
Resources, 1988-2003.
- Glazier, Ira A. Italians to America: Lists of Passengers
Arriving at U.S. Ports (1880-1899). 8 volumes. Wilmington,
Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1992.
-
Greek Immigrant Passengers
- Haury, David A. Index to Mennonite Immigrants in
Passenger Lists (1872-1904). North Newton, Kansas: Mennonite
Library, 1986.
- Hoeke-Nishimoto, Sonja. "Hamburg Police Records." German
Genealogical Digest. 1990, Vol. 6, No. 1, 9-16 and No. 2,
46-52.
- Humphrey, John I. "Researching German Ancestors: Part II -
Emigration Records." N.G.S. Newsmagazine. May/June 2001,
138-140.
- Irish
Immigrants 1846-1886 (CD-Roms & an online database; includes
the Irish Famine Immigrants series)
-
Italians to America 1880-1902 (books, a CD-Rom & an online
database)
-
Luxembourg Immigrants
- Owen, Robert E. Luxembourgers in the New World. 2
volumes. Luxembourg: Editions-Reliures Schortgen, 1987.
-
Passenger lists and emigrant ships from Norway Heritage.
Norway Heritage: Hands Across the Sea.
-
Russians to America 1850-1896 - Includes Russians, Finns,
Poles and Germans from Russia
- Schenk, Trudy and Ruth Froelke. The Württemburg
Emigration Index. 5 volumes. Salt Lake City: Ancestry,
1986-1988.
- Smith, Clifford Neal. British and German Deserters,
Dischargees, and Prisoners of War Who May Have Remained in
Canada and the United States, 1774-1783. Part One and Part Two
[and] Deserters and disbanded Soldiers from British, German, and
Loyalist Military Units in the South, 1782. 3 parts in 1.
Baltimore, Maryland, Clearfield Co., 1988, 1989, 1991, 2004
reprint.
- Smith Clifford Neal. Emigrants from Fellbach (Baden
Wuerttemberg, Germany), 1735-1930. Baltimore, Maryland:
Clearfield Co., 1984, 2004 reprint.
- Smith, Clifford Neal. Emigrants from Former AMT Damme,
Oldenburg, Germany. Baltimore, Maryland: Clearfield Co.,
1981, 2004 reprint.
- Strassburger, Ralph B. and William J. Hinke. Pennsylvania
German Pioneers: A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals
in the port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808. Baltimore,
Maryland: Genealogical Publishing, 1934, partial reprint 1966.
-
Swedish Immigrants to New York
- Swierenga, Robert. Dutch Immigrants in the U.S. Ship
Passenger Manifests (1820-1880). 2 volumes. Wilmington,
Delaware: Scholarly Research, 1983.
- Swierenga, Robert. Dutch Immigrants in the U.S. Ship
Passenger Manifests (1820-1880). 2 volumes. Wilmington,
Delaware: Scholarly Research, 1983.
- The Transatlantic
Crossing. This is the story about how the majority of
emigrants going to America would travel. It also gives some
insight to the amazing development in how ships were constructed
and the transportation arranged.
-
United States, Famine Irish Passenger Index, 1846-1851.
Records for passengers who arrived at the Port of New York
during the Irish Famine 1846-1851. Created by the Balch
Institute for Ethnic Studies, Center for Immigration Research.
FamilySearch.
- Wittke, Carl. Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters
in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Press,
1952. Examines German immigration to the U.S. following the
failed 1848 revolution in Germany.
-
Wood, Virginia Steele. Immigrant Arrivals: A Guide to
Published Sources. Revised. (Washington, DC: Library of
Congress, Local History & Genealogy Reading Room, n.d.).
- Yoder, Don. Pennsylvania German Immigrants (1709-1786).
Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980.
- Zimmerman, Gary and Marion Wolfert. German Immigrants: Lists of Passengers from Bremen to New York.