{"id":7146,"date":"2014-05-15T15:46:18","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T15:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=7146"},"modified":"2022-09-23T14:14:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T18:14:52","slug":"where-to-find-passenger-lists-to-trace-your-immigrant-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/where-to-find-passenger-lists-to-trace-your-immigrant-ancestors.html","title":{"rendered":"Where to Find Passenger Lists to Trace Your Immigrant Ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: In this article, Mary\u00a0Harrell-Sesniak explains how ships\u2019 passenger lists can help you trace your ancestors\u2019 journeys to and arrivals in America\u2014and she provides dozens of links to passenger list websites. Mary is a genealogist, author and editor with a strong technology background.
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Tracing the ship journeys of your immigrant ancestors is an undertaking all family historians should do. A helpful resource for this kind of research is ships\u2019 passenger lists, which can report your ancestors\u2019 full names, what countries they came from, and when they arrived in America.<\/p>\n

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Photo: passengers on the deck of the steamship Comus. Credit: Library of Congress.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since there is no comprehensive online genealogy resource featuring all the passenger lists, researching them is a time-consuming task. To complicate matters, some old passenger records have been lost or destroyed. Don\u2019t despair, however\u2014there is hope for research success: many passenger lists have been transcribed or digitized, and are available for online searching.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, passenger lists were routinely published in the newspapers of the time; any comprehensive collection such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> will contain thousands of passenger lists.<\/p>\n

Filby\u2019s Records<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most comprehensive studies for pre-1820 arrivals in America is Passenger and Immigration Lists Index,<\/em> which was compiled by William P. Filby and Mary Keysor Meyer (Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1981). Known as \u201cFilby\u2019s\u201d to researchers, this body of work consists of 15 volumes and contains over 4.5 million names. It\u2019s available at select libraries and in several subscription services.<\/p>\n

As the FamilySearch Wiki<\/span> reports, Filby\u2019s includes \u201cpublished lists of immigrants\u2019 names taken from newspapers, naturalization oaths, indenture lists, headright grants, and other records.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passenger Lists in Newspapers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since a primary portion of the records in Filby\u2019s study came from newspaper reports, be sure to explore GenealogyBank\u2019s Passenger Lists in Newspapers 1704-1984<\/a> collection. Because shipping was a mainstay of early commerce, newspapers routinely advertised sailings and reported the arrivals of passengers and goods from foreign and domestic ports.<\/p>\n

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Photo: screenshot of GenealogyBank\u2019s search form for passenger lists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The information you\u2019ll uncover in passenger lists varies. Some accounts include little more than the ship or shipmaster\u2019s name for both incoming and outgoing vessels. Other records reveal a count of passengers and the names of most of the passengers. In some cases, the passengers traveling in steerage were not reported.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re lucky, passenger list records will report full names, or refer to travelers by title, as seen in this passenger list published in a 1793 Massachusetts newspaper.<\/p>\n

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Massachusetts Mercury (Boston, Massachusetts), 23 April 1793, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is another example of a passenger list, this one published in an 1895 New York newspaper.<\/p>\n

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New York Tribune (New York, New York), 18 July 1895, page 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Domestic Passenger Lists<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many websites feature, or refer to, passenger lists. Some have searchable databases, lists or links to other websites.<\/p>\n

Here are some helpful passenger list websites:<\/p>\n