Are you looking to uncover the immigration records of your ancestors? With the right resources and a bit of research, you can trace your family's heritage and discover the details of their journey to a new life. In this article, we'll provide a comprehensive guide to finding your ancestors' immigration records, from online databases to essential reference books. The first step in finding your immigrant ancestors is to explore the emigration and immigration records page on the home page. Here, you'll find links to online passenger lists organized by port, as well as descriptions of online and offline resources for periods before and after 1820.
In the International Passenger Departure Records and Emigration Records section, you'll find links divided by country of departure, including Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The Staats Archiv Bremen (passengers list, de) has published on the Internet 3000 records of passengers who left Bremen during the period 1920-1939, the only records that are preserved from this important port. We've rounded up 14 of the most useful websites for tracking immigrant ancestors, with helpful tips to look for in each of them. Researchers who assume that their immigrant ancestors arrived through Ellis Island are often disappointed by the results obtained there, since more than 8 million people, especially from Northern Europe, arrived in New York before the famous front door opened.
From 1855 to 1892, they were processed at Ellis Island's predecessor, Castle Garden, and you can search for them on this website. While most NARA immigration records are actually found on other genealogy sites, the archives have databases with which you can search 607,000 people who arrived in New York Harbor between 1846 and 1851, in addition to the index of American Germans to the United States (1850 to 189), Italians to the United States (1855 to 1900) and Russians to the United States (1834 to 189) and Russians to the United States (1834 to 189). Among the most comprehensive search resources on arrivals to the United States are the lists and indexes for the ports of San Francisco (1893-1895), Honolulu (1900-195), New Orleans (1820-194), Baltimore (1820-194), Boston (multiple collections), New York (several, 1820-1942, plus Ellis Island) and Philadelphia (1883-194). You can also search for border crossings from Canada (1895-1956) plus the “St.
Albans includes lists from 1895 to 195 and Mexico (1903—195); the NARA indexes on German, Italian, and Russian arrivals; as well as many smaller collections. Other databases focus on emigration, such as the “Lists of foreign passengers from the United Kingdom” (1890-1960), the passenger lists from Hamburg (1850-193) and two collections of Swedish emigration records, the essential “Emigrants Populär” (1783-195) and “Gothenburg, Sweden”, passenger lists, 1869—1951, both in Swedish. This subscription site has expanded far beyond its focus on the United Kingdom, and now includes a number of immigration records. In addition to “Lists of passengers departing from the United Kingdom” (1890-1960), you'll find the German, Italian and Russian NARA indexes, passenger lists for most major US ports and some smaller ones, and even “Shipwrecked Passengers To America” (1817-187). Find your Finnish ancestors in the institute's collection of 750,000 records, which includes passenger lists and passports. But today, the first step in finding passenger lists and other immigration records is to connect to the Internet, where you can perform sophisticated searches to discover variants of names and erroneous transcriptions.
The FamilySearch wiki is full of useful information to help you locate your immigrant ancestors. If your German ancestors came from the Duchy of Oldenburg area, look for them in this collection from the local genealogical society. Request this essential reference to discover when and where your immigrant ancestors arrived in the United States and it will help you find records such as ship passenger lists, naturalization documents, and more; plus the best research tips and websites to use. You can even search most databases for no last name or no name if, for example, you know the date of arrival but not your ancestor's name or if it has been mistranscribed. For many people tracing immigrant ancestors across an ocean can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Now with an updated web address and with 51 million passenger records in New York from when Ellis Island opened in 1892 until 1957 it remains an essential starting point for immigration research.
Seeing in black and white all that your family went through gives you an invaluable insight into their difficulties and hopes as they left behind everything they knew for a new life in a strange place. In this day and age it's tempting to think that all you have to do is type your last name into a computer and all your ancestor's immigration records will appear instantly. Your search may also include more than 1.3 million entries from The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild website. At Ellis Island National Immigration Museum or on their website you can explore your family's heritage by searching for nearly 65 million passenger records and ship statements. You can also search The FamilySearch wiki for specific information about your ancestor's port of arrival or their country of origin by searching for that state or country. Americans may assume that their ancestors arrived on US shores but don't overlook Canada as a possible point of entry with many immigrants travelling overland.
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