Your Guide to Finding and Using
Passenger Records & Ship Information
*Pre-1820 (pre Federal) lists * 1820-1890's (Customs Lists) *1890's-1954
* Ports * Locating lists * The Ships* Further Links* Books *What is a passenger list? Why would I want to see it?
pre 1820 (pre-federal ) lists :
- captains lists (pre-1820): name of ship, date and port of arrival, name, age, country of origin
- A large set of pre 1820 passenger lists are those taken at the Port of Philadelphia 1727-1808; published in Strassburger. Pennsylvania German Pioneers. If you have Germanic ancestors who arrived in Pennsylvania prior to 1808, you will want to check this.
- Pennsylvania German Pioneers Research Guide (described in the first item on this longer bibliography, with purchase information )
- Directory of online transcriptions from Strassburger.
- Find in a Library
- 1800-- Baggage Lists (1800-1819 most through Port of Philadelphia): name and inventory of possessions; some lists contain added information. Names those who had baggage in excess of the duty free limit.
- example of an 1809 baggage list
Bad news: these lists are not in the National Archives, but must be located in scattered repositories.
Good news: most extant lists have been published and indexed.see:
- FamilySearch Wiki: US Immigration Passenger Arrival Record>Pre 1820 lists
- Immigration and Ships Passenger List Research Guide Section 3: Research in the years before 1820
- Beine. Finding Passenger Lists before 1820: a list of books, CD Roms and online databases.
- Almost all, if not all, of these lists have been transcribed and published and are searchable in the index put out by Filby & Meyers (see below)
Customs passenger lists (1820-1893)
- all Captains of vessels required to submit a listing of passengers to the Collector of Customs.
- This did not cover all ports until 1905 and there was not universal compliance for the covered ports.
- see: Immigration and Ships Passenger List Research Guide Section 4: Research in the Years 1820-1892
Information on the lists:name of ship, name of master, port of embarkation, age, sex, occupation and nationality.
example: 1847 passenger list
example: 1851 passenger list (scroll down)
l847 Canadian list
1891-1954 immigration passenger lists:
- Resposibility shifted from Customs to the other Departments,1891 forwaqrd; finally in 1906 to the INS
- see: Immigration and Ships Passenger List Research Guide Section 5: Research in the Years after ca. 1891
1893-1902 above + marital status, last residence, final destination in U.S., prior visits to U.S., if going to join a relative, name and addrss of that relative, literacy, if has train ticke to final destination, who paid passage, if ever institutionalized or a polygamist, and state of health.
- example 1897 passenger list
- example 1900 passenger list
- 1903-1905 above + race or people
- example: 1903 passenger list
- 1906 above + personal description and place of birth
- 1907 above + name and address of closest living relative in native country
- example of 1917 passenger list
- Annotations on the lists also gave further information.
Problems in researching are nothing new, but perhaps highlighted by two languages. They include difficult to read handwriting, indexing errors, inaccurate information, deliberate avoidance or mis-information lack of uniformity in collection of data.
How to locate the list that contains your ancestor:
Before you begin your research, you should know at least the approximate
- name; challenges include
- spelling differences
- name changes
- example of name change discovered by using family documents
- name changes
- Why U Kant Find Your Ancestors
- difficult to read handwriting
- poor quality film
- name changes at Ellis Island? -- a myth.
- age
- helps identify the right person
- date and port of arrival; name of ship
- 1900-1930 census list date of immigration
- example of 1920 census
- Post 1906 Naturalization Petitions will give information
- Some passport applications of naturalized citizens will give naturalization and immigration information
- interview family members
- Obituaries might give date of arrival (example-- scroll down)
- you may have to guess at port of arrival
- notice place or birth of children born shortly after arrival
- Remember: Passenger lists are lists of passengers on the ships... not necessarily immigrants
- See Getting Started for more advice
For almost all pre 1820 and many post 1820 lists, you can consult Filby and Meyers. Passenger and Immigrations List Index: a Guide to Published Arrival Records.. came to America in Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth century. (find in a library )
- a multivolume set that indexes passengers and cites to the source of the information; an index to locate information from another source
- 3 main volumes plus annual and cumulative supplements-- supplements must be checked as well as the 3 volume starter set.
- You can also search this index through Ancestry.com (but not Library edition). It is now also available at World Vital Records.com ( you will need the "world" subscription)
