Migration & Passenger Information 🚢
Tracing an immigrant ancestor involves using records from both the country of departure (emigration records) and the country of arrival (passenger lists, immigration, and naturalization records). The following resources are categorized by geographic focus and type to facilitate a successful migration search, which is often the most critical step in bridging research between continents.
United States & North American Arrivals 🇺🇸
- The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Foundation (Port of New York Passenger Search, 1820-1957)
- National Archives (NARA) Immigration Records (The official guide to US Passenger, Naturalization, and Border Crossing records)
- USCIS Researching Individuals (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services - Naturalization and Alien Files)
- US Ports of Arrival & their Available Immigration Records
- New York City and the History of Ellis Island (Historical overview)
- Library of Congress Immigrant Arrivals: A Guide To Published Sources
Commercial & Collaborative Databases (Global) 🌐
These sites often host digitized images and searchable indexes of records found at national archives, and may require a subscription or be available free via their free database offerings:
- FamilySearch - Immigration and Emigration Records (Free digitized and indexed records)
- Ancestry.com Immigration and Travel Collections (Major commercial record host)
- Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (ISTG) (Volunteer-transcribed passenger manifests)
- Cyndi’s List Ships & Passenger Lists (General Ship Lists)
- Cyndi’s List Ships & Passenger Lists (Specific Ship Lists)
- Olive Tree Genealogy Ships Passengers Lists
- Finding Your Family from Ship Passenger Lists (General Guide)
German Emigration Records (Abgangslisten) 🇩🇪
Records often kept by the port or region of departure, which can name the specific ancestral town.
- German Emigration Center (Deutsches Auswandererhaus), Bremerhaven (General information and research)
- Hamburg Passenger Lists (via FamilySearch) (Searchable guide to the world's best-preserved port records, 1850-1934)
- Bremen Passenger Lists (Guide to records for Bremen/Bremerhaven, most lost)
- Die Maus, Gesellschaft für Familienforschung (Bremen Genealogy Society, holds some Bremen records)
- Auswanderung- GenWiki (German Genealogy Wiki guide to Emigration)
- Auswanderung aus Rheinland-Pfalz (Emigration from Rhineland-Palatinate)
- Bavaria - Emigration/Immigration (Historical records guide)
- German Roots Finding Passenger Lists & Immigration Records 1820-1940s
- German Roots Finding Passenger Lists Before 1820
Other International Destinations & Ethnic Groups 🌍
- Library and Archives Canada (LAC) - Immigration Records (The official Canadian records portal)
- National Archives of Australia (NAA) - Passenger Arrival Records (Records from 1924 onwards; state archives hold earlier ones)
- Centro de Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos (CEMLA - Migration to Argentina/Latin America)
- Irish Passenger Lists Research Guide – Irish Immigration Records
- Jewish Migration (European History Guide)
Historical & Academic Migration Context 📜
- Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Migration) (German Federal Agency for Civic Education on Migration)
- 5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian steppes to Europe (Eupedia)
- Indo-European migrations (Wikiwand)
- Confessional Migration (European History Guide)
- Forced Ethnic Migration (European History Guide)
- Map of Human Migration (PBS)
Credits
Compiled by Mark Rabideau, Opa & Professional Genealogist.