At the Library, one can choose from a number of routes to search for Passenger and Immigration Lists and information.. The principle ones are:
· Using the National Archives Immigrant and Passenger Arrivals Microfilm Publications in Conjunction with the LDS Web Site.
· Using the Library’s Catalog to Identify Pertinent Books and CD ROMs
· Using Other Web Sites on the Internet to Find Publications and Data Bases
NARA and LDS
In the Library’s catalog, going to the Keyword for “Immigration” brings up, among other hits, the NARA publication “Immigrant & Passenger Arrivals” 929.32573 NAT. For the most part, this contains “Records of the U.S. Customs Service, 1820-ca.1891” and “Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1891-1957”.
In this book the researcher can search to identify the microfilm of interest. This gives the NARA number and the next step is to get the corresponding LDS film number so that the film can be ordered and searched for a specific individual.
To get the film number, first go to the “Family Search” LDS web site and then on the home page in the right-hand column select and click on “Search the Family History Library Catalog for Records and Resources”. Next, use the “Place Name” search for “United States”. This brings up a huge number of records whose titles start with “United States”.
Then, search alphabetically for “Emigration and Immigration” at about topic number 170. You should be able to find groups of microfilms listed whose exact titles correspond to the sections of the above mentioned NARA publication. Note that this requires some care to look for precisely the right thing. For example, there is a heading in the NARA book “Atlantic, Gulf and Great Lakes Ports” which heading title you will not use. But a sub-heading under it in the NARA book is titled “A Supplemental Index To Passenger Lists Of Vessels…”. This can be found by ignoring the opening article “A”. Once you find the exact match, you select it, go to the Film Notes for that item, and from the notes get the LDS film number for ordering. The film can then be ordered at the Heritage Library.
Along the way in this process you will probably find many interesting references. You can peruse these to see which ones are on microfilm so that they can be ordered. If you find that there are books of interest that have not been filmed, it is possible to ask a researcher in Salt Lake City to look something up for you. Ask one of our Librarians about doing this.
On the LDS site in addition to searching by Keywords, good information can also be gotten by searching for Titles and Subjects. Suggested insert words can be “Passenger Lists”, “Ship Lists” or “Immigration”. Your initiative will suggest still other words.
Using the Catalog
The Library’s catalog is especially useful as a starting point if the Immigrant you are looking for came to the United States before the NARA records began to be compiled. The NARA records appear to have begun in 1820, but cannot reliably be counted on to have substantially comprehensive records before about say, 1865.
The earlier records of immigrants are found in various compilations in books and published articles. Such materials may use terms for the arriving persons as passengers, settlers, adventurers, ship arrivals etc. This variation of terms requires that the keywords used in searching the catalog be varied in order to cover all the possibilities.
The library’s catalog is intended to be complete only for our holdings of books and CD ROMs. So, the possibility of gleaning information from other publications such as periodicals, and from our Vertical Files, should not be overlooked if the basic sources do not yield results.. The notebook of indexes for these is organized for quick searching by topics.
Of particular use from a catalog search are the many CD’s published in the Family Tree Maker’s Family Archives and other series. These cover time periods from the earliest days up until about 1900 for people who emigrated from various countries. There may be 50-60 CD’s found under keywords such as immigration, settlers and passenger lists.
Other Web Sites
There are a large number of web sites useful for searching for immigration data, notably:
· American Family Immigration History Center This is the family genealogy facility and database of immigration records from The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. It allows searching for passenger records for immigrants who were processed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.
· What Passenger Lists Are Online?
This site by Ancestry.com answers that question with transcribed records indexed by ports of departure and arrival.
General
It is useful to think of the next step after one finds a record of an emigrant, hopefully with the ship that they came on. The researcher will then want to find out where they came from and some record of their birth or origin. After 1850 the census records show the country of origin but no other specifics. One approach then is to compile the family names of those persons who were close to them on the ship passenger list. This requires the assumption that they may have all come from the same area. Then the researcher can try to find the place in the country of origin that had families of those names residing in the same area. This can be used to narrow down the search for church or other records of their birth or marriage in the country of origin. This “triangulation” approach may be the only way to make the leap back to the country of origin, if no family record or tradition about the origin has been passed down.
