Ancestry.com has announced that it has added to its online service all readily available U.S. passenger lists from 1820 to 1960. Wow! This is a lot of data. I’m not surprised, as I spent days reviewing the immigration digital data sites at Ancestry.com for the Sept-Oct issue of the Net Family History section in the Genealogical Helper. I realized as I wrote the reviews that Ancestry.com had posted a lot more data than I previously knew about.
“More than 100 Million Names on All Readily Available U.S. Passenger Lists from 1820 – 1960; Includes the Complete Ellis Island Collection, as well as Records from Over 100 Other U.S. Ports of Arrival.
“PROVO, UTAH – November 9, 2006 – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced that it has added to its online service all readily available U.S. passenger lists from 1820 to 1960. An estimated 85 percent of Americans have an immigrant ancestor included in the passenger list collection which covers the height of American immigration, making Ancestry.com the only source for the largest compilation of passenger list records available and fully searchable online. … The passenger list collection, which took more than three years to digitize and transcribe, celebrates the courage, hopes, fears and memories of more than 100 million passengers…
“Until the completion of this project, U.S. passenger list records could only be found on microfilm or in limited selections online at various dispersed locations such as libraries and museums across the nation. For the first time, people can look to a single centralized source online to find all readily available passenger list records. More than 100 American ports of arrival are represented in the compilation including the entire collection of passenger list records (1892-1957) from Ellis Island, a historic landmark and icon of immigration. The collection also accounts for popular ports in Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans and the Angel Island receiving station in San Francisco.
