Migration and Ship Passenger Lists

One of the ultimate goals for locating the immigrant ancestor is finding the record of how they came to America.  New York Ellis Island, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Galveston, New Orleans, were all major ports of entry for those seeking a new life.   Click on the state links below to locate available migration and ship records for that state.

 Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s **Ancestry.com** Updated annually, this database is an index to passengers who arrived in United States and Canadian ports from the 1500s through the 1900s. It contains listings of approximately 4,588,000 individuals and references thousands of different records compiled from everything from original passenger lists to personal diaries. For each individual listed, you may find the following information: name, age, year and place of arrival, and the source of the record.

Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948 **Ancestry.com** This database is an index to the passenger lists of ships arriving from foreign ports at the port of Baltimore, Maryland, USA, from 1820-1948. In addition, the names found in the index are linked to actual images of the passenger lists. Information contained in the index includes given name, surname, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality or last country of permanent residence, destination, arrival date, port of arrival, port of departure, ship name, and microfilm roll and page number.

Boston Passenger Lists, 1820-1943 **Ancestry.com** This database is an index to the passenger lists of ships arriving from foreign ports at the port of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, from 1820-1943. In addition, the names found in the index are linked to actual images of the passenger lists. Information contained in the index includes given name, surname, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality or last country of permanent residence, destination, arrival date, port of arrival, port of departure, ship name, and microfilm roll and page number.

Galveston Passenger Lists, 1896-1948 **Ancestry.com** This database is an index to the passenger lists of ships arriving from foreign ports at the port of Galveston, Texas and the subports of Houston, Brownsville, Port Arthur, Sabine, and Texas City, Texas, from 1896-1948. In addition, the names found in the index are linked to actual images of the passenger lists. Information contained in the index includes given name, surname, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality or last country of permanent residence, destination, arrival date, port of arrival, port of departure, ship name, and microfilm roll and page number. If a name of a friend or relative whom the individual was going to join with, or a place of nativity was provided, that information is included in the index as well.

San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists Vol. I [1850-1864] **Ancestry.com** In the absence of official port records--destroyed by fire in 1940--this ambitious work attempts a reconstruction of passenger arrivals from newspapers and journals. The volume offered here is a reprint of the first volume in a series dealing with passenger arrivals at the port of San Francisco between 1850 and 1875, though this first volume contains a selection of passenger lists extending only though 1864.

San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists Vol. II [1850-1851] **Ancestry.com** The second volume in Louis Rasmussen's series dealing with passenger arrivals at the port of San Francisco between 1850 and 1875. In the absence of official port records--which were destroyed by the fire in 1940--this work attempts a reconstruction of passenger arrivals from newspapers and journals. Volume II is based on completely different sources than the first volume in the series, which covered the years 1850-1864, and it encompasses an additional 16,500 passenger arrivals at San Francisco Bay during the 20-month period from April 1850 to November 1851. Most of these individuals, in the author's words," had come to the West in search of the golden goose who had laid the golden egg." Most would not find it, of course, but would remain in California or migrate to the Oregon territory to take up other commercial or agricultural pursuits. The passengers named in Volume II came from all parts of the United States, as well as from Europe, although the majority were probably from the East Coast of the U.S. The passenger lists themselves are arranged in chronological order, and, typically, each passenger list is introduced with the following notations: name of ship, type of ship, port of embarkation, date of arrival, name of captain, description of cargo, and notes concerning the passage (date of departure, ports of call, length of voyage, and names of passengers who died en route, with their places of residence and dates of death). The list of passengers follows and sometimes identifies accompanying family members

San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists. Vol. III: 1851-1852 **Ancestry.com** The third volume in Louis Rasmussen's series dealing with passenger arrivals at the port of San Francisco between 1850 and 1875. In the absence of official port records--which were destroyed by fire in 1940--this work attempts a reconstruction of passenger arrivals from newspapers and journals. Volume III covers a seven-month period during which approximately 25,000 persons arrived at the port of San Francisco--nearly 50% more than the number of arrivals for the preceding 18-month period covered in Volume II. The year 1852 witnessed a surge in migration to California, and this volume reflects the initial thrust of that surge.

Atlantic Ports Passenger Lists, 1820-1873 and 1893-1959 **Ancestry.com** This database is an index to the passenger lists of ships arriving from foreign ports at various American Atlantic ports. Information contained in the index includes given name, surname, age, gender, ethnicity, last residence, arrival date, port of arrival, port of departure, ship name, and microfilm roll and page number..

Brandenburg, Prussia Emigration Records **Ancestry.com** A province of the Prussian Empire, Brandenburg stretched from the Elbe River to beyond the Oder River and into modern Poland in the 1800s. This database, newly updated, is a collection of government records regarding persons emigrating from the province in the 19th century. Each record provides the emigrant's name, age, occupation, residence, destination, and year of emigration. Part of an ongoing project, the database now contains the names of more than 36,800 persons. The records were taken from microfiche copies of records kept at the main archive in Potsdam (Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam). For researchers of German ancestors, this can be a helpful source of information.

Canadian Immigrant Records, Part One **Ancestry.com** Compiled from a variety of sources, this database is a collection of over 193,000 records between 1780 and 1906 relating to immigrants to Canada. Researchers will find the name of the immigrant and year and source of the original record.

Canadian Immigrant Records, Part Two **Ancestry.com** Compiled from a variety of sources, this database is a collection of over 29,000 records between 1780 and 1906 relating to immigrants to Canada. Researchers will find the name of the immigrant and year and source of the original record.

Wuerttemberg, Germany Emigration Index **Ancestry.com**The Wuerttemberg Emigration Index is a seven volume work that represents the thousands of German and Prussian immigrants to the United States that made application to emigrate at Wuerttemberg, Germany. This collection, filmed at Ludwigsburg, contains the names of approximately 60,000 persons who made application to leave Germany from the late eighteenth century to 1900. The information supplied on each person includes: name, date and place of birth, residence at time of application and application date, and microfilm number.