Immigration authorities specified the format of passenger arrival lists (manifests) so they could be used to account for the immigrants arriving at each port of entry. Manifests were prepared overseas. Passenger lists are maintained by port of entry and then ordered by the date of each vessel’s arrival. 19th-century lists often contain little more than the immigrant’s name, age, gender, marital status, occupation, country of origin, and the destination “U.S.” Later arrival records are more detailed, containing such information as birthplace, last residence, closest relative in the town of last residence, and the name and address of the immigrant’s contact in the U.S.
U.S. passenger arrival lists are available on microfilm at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C., and at NARA regional branches around the country, which typically have records for the ports of entry nearest each branch. For further information about immigration records see the NARA website. Many lists from a variety of ports have now been scanned and made available online by commercial vendors, such as ancestrylibrary.com, available at the Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute and other libraries. Please check your local library.
The largest number of immigrants arrived in the Port of New York, for which lists are available from 1820 to 1957, including some passengers who arrived by airplane. Surname indexes exist for most of these lists, either on microfilm or online through commercial databases like ancestrylibrary.com, available at the Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute and other libraries. Please check your local library.
More recent immigration records can be obtained by filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. For further details, click on the link and see the form on the top left side of the page.
If the port, ship, and date of arrival are not known, it may be possible to find this information in naturalization papers (see our U.S. naturalization records research guide).
The Morton Allan Directory of European Passenger Ship Arrivals (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980) lists the dates and names of passenger ships arriving at eastern U.S. ports, including New York, from 1890 to 1930. Thus, if you have partial information, such as the name of the ship and the approximate date of arrival, you may be able to pinpoint the date using this directory. Genealogy Institute HE 945 .A2 D5 1998
CIMO - Cimorelli Immigration Manifests Online has several useful online databases, including the Morton Allan Directory.
Glazier, Ira A. Migration from the Russian Empire: Lists of Passengers Arriving at the Port of New York, vols. 1- 6 (1875-1891) (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co. 1995-1997). American Jewish Historical Society E 184 .R9 M54 1995
Passenger records prepared at the port of embarkation also exist and may contain much useful information.
The American Family Immigration History Center of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation has prepared an online index to passenger lists for ships that came into Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924. For the most efficient searches of this database, use the Ellis Island Search Forms. CastleGarden.org offers free access to an extraordinary database of information on 11 million immigrants arriving in New York, from 1820 through 1892, prior to the opening of Ellis Island.
Even if you think your immigrant ancestor first settled in New York, she or he may have actually entered by some other port, such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. Immigrants were often diverted to other ports during heavy traffic periods, even to Canadian ports. Lists of immigrants destined for the U.S. who arrived in Canadian ports are available from NARA, under “Canadian Border Crossing records.” As mentioned above, lists from other ports are available online at commercial websites like Ancestrylibrary.com, available at the Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute and other libraries. Please check your local library.
For ancestors who traveled through Hamburg, there are Hamburg emigration lists in German. They extend from 1850 to 1934 and are completely indexed. (The indexes, however, are somewhat difficult to use). The Hamburg lists and indexes are available at the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute. The institute has a set of these microfilms on long-term loan, click here for more information. The Hamburg lists and indexes are also available online through ancestry.com at the Genealogy Institute.
The passenger lists of the Holland-America Line, for ships that departed from Rotterdam, 1900- 1940, are available on microfiche at the Genealogy Institute. (See the link above).
The Texas Seaport Museum Immigration Database found offers information on more than 130,000 passengers who first disembarked at Galveston from 1844 to1948. If a passenger first disembarked at another port (such as New York) and then traveled to Texas, he or she will not be found in this database. This database is made up of names from the National Archives microfilm, various book sources, and information from the Galveston Daily News. The Galveston Movement operated between 1907 and 1914 to divert Jews fleeing Russia and Eastern Europe away from crowded East Coast cities. Ten thousand Jewish immigrants passed through Galveston, Texas during this era, which is approximately one-third the number who migrated to Palestine during the same period.
The Jewish immigrants who took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862 in areas like North and South Dakota came from Russia, Poland, Romania and Galicia. Their homestead file will contain information about their immigration. Homestead files are kept in the National Archives building at the National Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, and may be accessed by using the legal description of your ancestor's land. · The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has passport applications from October 1795 to March 1925. The U.S. Department of State has passport applications from April 1925 to the present. More information on how to draw genealogical information from passport records can be found at the NARA website.
The National Archives’ Passenger lists databases (AAD):
1. Data files relating to the immigration of Russians to the United States, documenting the period 1834-1894.
2. Records of passengers who arrived at the port of New York during the Irish Femine, documenting the period 1/12/1946-12/31/1851.
3. Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Germans to the United States, documenting the period 1850 – 1897.
4. Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Italians to the United States, documenting the period 1855 – 1900.
United States census takers in 1900, 1910, and 1920 asked foreign-born residents what year they came to the United States, how many years they had resided here, and what their citizenship status was. Federal censuses are available at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the twelve regional archives, and numerous libraries, including the LDS church Family History Library and ancestrylibrary.com