Immigration: Overseas Indexes and Passenger Lists

Web Sites for Genealogists - An Australian gateway site for tracing your family history by Cora Num

Need Help with Shipping Research? See How to Find Shipping and Immigration Records in Australia Click here for details.

Ancestorsonboard.comdatabase to Outward Passenger Lists for voyages departing the British Isles 1890-1960 for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA. The free name search lists names, age, sex, departure year and port, destination port and county plus details of transcripts and images which are available for a fee.

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild has 9,000+ passenger list transcripts online including lists of departures from the German ports of Altona, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Cuxhaven, Geestemunde, Hamburg, Stettin, Swinemunde (now Swinoujscie, Poland) plus unspecified ports. The Special Lists collection includes World War II Refugees to Australia. See Online Indexes and Passenger Lists for details.

Bremen Passenger Lists (1920-1939) online searchable database.

Ancestry.com offers access to Hamburg Passenger Lists 1850-1934 (gap 1915-1919). Digitised images of the passenger lists are available. Currently 1890-1913 have been indexed though there is access to handwritten indexes 1855-1934. Both sets of records are in German. Some free indexes on offer include the Wuerttemberg, Germany Emigration Index (in English). It lists 60,000+ persons who applied at Wuerttemberg to leave Germany from the late 18th century to 1900. Brandenburg, Prussia Emigration Records (in German). A collection of government records relating to emigrants from Brandenburg in the 19th century. Baden, Germany Emigration Index, 1866-1911 (in English) lists 28,000+ persons who left Baden. A variety of subscription options is available for access to a vast collection of worldwide databases, many relevant to shipping and immigration.

The Castle Garden Database lists 10 million+ arrivals to the USA. Castle Garden, Manhattan, America's first immigration center (1830-1892) was succeeded by Ellis Island in 1892.

Ellis Island American Family Immigration History Center online database lists 25+ million arrivals to the USA (1892-1924). A search returns name, nationality, residence, arrival and departure details, age and marital status. Access to digital copies of the original passenger lists requires registration (free). Fees apply to purchase digital copies of the ship manifest or a photograph of the ship.

Massachusetts Archives - Boston Passenger Lists Online (1848-1891). This database, searchable by name or ship, and returns names, title, ship and date. Passenger manifest information available includes country of origin, age, occupation and other details.

BritishOrigins, British and Irish Passenger Lists 1890 to the USA and Canada. Lists 194,000+ names, occupation, nationality, age, marital status plus ship,sailing date, departure and destination ports. There is a free name search and various subscription options are available.

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Immigration: Overseas Indexes and Passenger Lists