Records of Immigrant Arrivals in America since 1798

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The following article is written by my good friend, William Dollarhide:

Dollarhide’s Genealogy Rule No. 32: Your ancestor will be featured in the county history because he was the first prisoner in the new jail.

I hope your immigrant ancestors were not like mine. I am convinced that some of my ancestors arrived in America by way of a rowboat, probably in the dead of night, and for which there is no written record. And, of course, I have several ancestors who I believe did not officially immigrate to the United States, they just appeared one day. Some were undoubtedly the products of some miraculous beginning – one in which no parents were involved at all. But I keep looking for some evidence of their immigration to America anyway, just in case they turn out to be mere mortals after all. Here is a review of the types of records available to genealogists looking for their (mortal) immigrant ancestors.

Customs Passenger Lists
Through the U.S. Customs Service, the federal government has been recording the names of passengers aboard ships arriving in America since 1798, and for many different ports of entry to the United States. Most of these original records still exist at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Passenger arrivals recorded from 1798 to 1820 are mainly baggage lists or cargo manifests from ships arriving in the United States, but many of these lists also show the names of passengers. For this period, the cargo-passenger lists are very fragmented, since there was no uniform national policy to the handling of the ship manifests until 1819.

An Act of March 2, 1819 required vessels to deliver to the U.S. Customs a manifest (list of names) of all the passengers coming to the United States. An original manifest was prepared on board a ship, sworn to by the master of the vessel, and filed with the collector of customs when the ship arrived at the port. The manifest usually contained the name of the vessel, name of the master, name of port of embarkation, date of arrival, name of port of arrival; and for each passenger, a name, age, sex, occupation, name of country of origin, country of intended settlement, and date and circumstances of death en route, if applicable. The information was recorded for all passengers, including immigrants, tourists, or U.S. citizens returning from abroad.

The surviving U.S. Customs passenger lists from U.S. ports are now stored at the National Archives, and most of them have been microfilmed, digitized, and indexed. Since the original lists are arranged by port and date of arrival, finding a person’s name in the lists (without an index) requires an exact understanding of the time and place of arrival of an ancestor to America. Many of the specialized indexes to the records are specific to the ethnic origins of the passengers, but there are also indexes specific to certain ports and for certain time periods.

Immigration Passenger Lists.
An act of 1882 established new procedures for immigrants arriving in the United States. The manifest records maintained by federal immigration officials were often called Immigration Passenger Lists. The lists are part of the records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (formerly the Bureau of Immigration, and currently the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau). The National Archives has microfilm copies of these lists, dated generally 1883-1945, and for all ports of arrival in the United States.

For the first few years after 1882, the Immigration Passenger Lists were prepared by the various port authorities, following a format of their own choosing. Each list contained at least the following information: name of master, name of vessel, name of port, arrival date, and for each passenger, a name, place of birth, age, and sex. In 1893, a standardized format was implemented by the Bureau of Immigration and used thereafter at all U.S. ports of arrival.

The 1893 form contained the following information: name of master, name of vessel, names of ports of arrival and embarkation, date of arrival, and the following information for each passenger: full name, age; sex; marital status; occupation; nationality; last residence; final destination; whether going to join a relative and if so, the relative’s name, address, and relationship to the passenger. In 1903 the form added the race of each passenger, and in 1906, the name and address of the nearest relative in the immigrant’s home country was given. Included in the lists were immigrants, tourists, and U.S. citizens returning from abroad. For some ports, there are separate lists for aliens and for citizens. Lists of citizens show for each passenger, a name, age, sex, and marital status; date and place of birth if born in the United States; date of naturalization and name and location of court if applicable; and a current address for the passenger. The fact that names of U.S. citizens returning home from visits abroad are included in the Immigration Passenger List, makes these records rare sources for finding a person’s place of residence. And for naturalized citizens returning from abroad, specific information about the court where the person’s naturalization took place may be a revelation. Naturalized citizens who moved often during their lives may not have left many marks to follow – the key to finding a person’s naturalization records is to find a court nearest where the person was living when the petitions were filed, and where the person was living when the Naturalization Certificate was issued. See my previous article, A Review of Naturalization Records for more information about the process.

National Archives Indexes to Passenger Arrivals.
The National Archives has indexes to the Customs Passenger Lists and Immigration Passenger Lists, as well as the original manifests for the following ports: Baltimore, 1820-1952; Boston, 1848-1892, 1902-1920; New Orleans, 1820-1859, 1853-1899; New York, 1820-1846, 1897-1943; and Philadelphia, 1800-1948, plus a few isolated lists from various other ports. Both the original manifests and the indexes are all on microfilm. A request can be made to search these indexed passenger lists. Obtain a copy of NATF Form 81 (Order for Copies of Ship Passenger Arrival Records) at the National Archives web site at www.nara.gov. All of these National Archives lists and indexes are available online at several commercial websites, including www.Ancestry.com (a subscription site, but where index searching is free). Check also the Historical Record Collections of the www.FamilySearch.org website.

New York Port Arrivals
For many years, the lack of National Archives indexes to especially New York arrivals from 1846 to 1897 – the period in which the largest number of immigrants came to America – was a real burden for genealogists. The New York arrivals for 1846-1897 were organized in chronological order by the year, month, and name of ship, but there was no complete index available at the National Archives. For years, the process of locating an immigrant’s name in a passenger list to New York for this period was one of searching a particular year for a particular ship, and hoping to find a particular name listed on one of the manifests – a daunting endeavor. But the good news is that there are now several indexing projects outside the National Archives that have brought this critical period into better focus:

  • New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. Taken from the National Archives microfilm, this indexed database is online at the Ancestry website.
  • New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924. Over 24 million arrivals through Ellis Island are indexed. Visit the FamilySearch site at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1368704, or visit the same database with a free search at The Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation site at www.ellisisland.org. The Ellis Island index is also available through Ancestry.com and other commercial sites.

Other Port Arrivals

Balch Institute Indexes.
Much of the Ellis Island indexing was conducted through the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. In addition to the Ellis Island names, several more name indexes to passenger arrivals were done by the Balch Institute. For example, there are published name lists from passenger arrivals for the following ethnic groups and time periods. Some of these volumes are still in print, and all are available at major genealogy-related libraries.

● Glazier, Ira A. and Tepper, Michael, eds. The Famine Immigrants: List of the Irish Immigrants Arriving at the Port of New York, 1846 – 1851, 7 vols. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1983-86).
● Glazier, Ira A. and P. William Filby, eds., Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, 1850 — 1897. (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1988-96). Currently available: Vol. 1 (Jan. 1850) — Vol. 59 (Nov. 1890).
● Glazier, Ira A. and P. William Filby, eds., Italians to America: List of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, 1880 — 1899 . (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1992-96). Currently available: Vol. 1 (Jan. 1880) — Vol. 9 (June 1896).
● Glazier, Ira A., ed., Migration from the Russian Empire: List of Passengers Arriving at the Port of New York, 1875 — 1891 . (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 1995 — ). Currently available: Vol. 1 (Jan. 1875) to Vol. 6 (June 1891).

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