Immigration by Passenger Ship Research Guide - Steamship Historical Society

A Genealogist’s Research Guide

There are a number of record types that can help uncover information on an ancestor’s immigration to America. This guide from the Steamship Historical Society is designed to help researchers access documentation on an individual’s travel via passenger ship and to help understand what that experience may have been like.

View of steerage passengers from the First Class deck on the Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse, c. 1902. SSHSA Archives.

Where to Start?

Start with what you know! Write down vital information, including birth, death, marriage, and names of spouses and children.
Now ask around! Fill in blanks by asking parents, cousins, and everyone in between, even if they seem unsure. Each detail can serve as a clue where to begin researching.
Ask open-ended questions that start with what, when, how to get them talking. Where did they live in the US? What family lived nearby? How did they meet their spouse?
Don’t stop at “I don’t know” when they shake their head, instead share your memory about an ancestor as a jumping off point.

Census

The 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 census listed year of immigration. FamilySearch.org offers a free, searchable database of U.S. Federal Census information and images. Keep in mind it may be a clue or a “guesstimate” because the person reporting to the census taker was not necessarily the individual. Often it was someone else in the household or a neighbor.

Check out “Census Records May Help Locate Immigration and Naturalization Records” by History Hub.

Which Port?

Steerage Passengers on deck, SSHSA Archives.

New researchers may immediately think of Ellis Island as their ancestor’s port of entry. Don’t lose hope if you enter a name and arrival date on “Passenger Ship – The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island” and nothing comes up.

There were many ports of entry along the U.S. East and West Coasts. Canada was also a common port of entry; in fact, some passenger lines marketed their Canadian ports as an economical, low-cost alternative to New York City. Ship Passenger List records are the most direct way to determine the port of arrival. You may make a connection of a potential port by investigating where relatives were living before they left.

Ship Passenger Lists

An arrival date from the census, along with a first and last name, can help move your research along. The National Archives has passenger arrival records for those who came to the United States from foreign ports between approximately 1820 and December 1982.

Generally, a passenger list will offer information on arrival age, birth date, port of departure, arrival date, port of arrival, ports of voyage, name of ship, shipping line, and the official number (an internal number assigned by the shipping line). The port of departure is an important fact that can lead to their hometown.

It is common to see markings and notations on the passenger list. There is a guide designed to assist researchers in interpreting the markings, or annotations, found through immigration passenger lists. To learn more about the manifest markings, check “A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations” by Marian L. Smith in 2002.

Keep in mind that arrival records are restricted, due to personally identifiable information, for 75 years so attempting a search before that time limit is up may not be successful. However, restricted records can be requested through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Tip: If your searches are unsuccessful, broaden the arrival date +/- 1 year. The census information may have been reported by another family member or even neighbor who was guessing around the time. Try different spellings of the last name. For more help on refining a search, check out “10 Google Search Techniques for Family History Research” on Findmypast blog.

The storyteller, Glass Plate Image, SSHSA Archives.

Border Crossing

No luck finding a passenger list? Still searching for the ship they arrived on? How about searching for a land crossing to connect to the port of arrival?

Large numbers of immigrants came to the United States via Canadian ports. U.S. immigration records of arrivals to Canada or from Canada into the United States, held at the National Archives, are popularly known as the “St. Albans Lists.” An 1884 agreement between railroads and steamship lines serving Canadian ports and the U.S. Immigration Service resulted in documentation that can assist researchers.

You can learn more by reading Marian L. Smith’s “By Way of Canada” at the National Archives.

Passenger Ship Images

Don’t stop now! If you found the ship your ancestor arrived on, how about providing the family an impressive picture of the ship to show off your research skills?

You can search the Steamship Historical Society’s online catalog by typing in the ship name. Make sure to tick the box under the search bar that says “Items with Images Only.” If you don’t find what you’re looking for, email info@sshsa.org. We have many items that are not listed or available online that our Archivists can help you find.

SSHSA Archivist Astrid Drew shows teachers primary sources from our archive and collections.

320 Steamship Information records are available from Mystic Seaport in a sortable table listing vessel information. Some are linked to images as well.

Also, Ancestry.com, a subscription service, offers a searchable database “Passenger Ships and Images” that boasts thousands of images of passenger ships.

Immigrants on deck. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

A Path to Citizenship

Becoming a naturalized citizen was a process that would take, at a minimum, five years. A Declaration of Intention, also referred to as “first papers” could be filed by an immigrant after living in the United States for two years. This paperwork was filed in a local court close to the immigrant’s residence.

Three years after the declaration, a Petition for Naturalization, or “second papers,” were filed.

For more information see James H. Kettner’s The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1978).

Petitions for Naturalization

Petitions for Naturalization records, also commonly referred to as declaration records, include name, birth date, approximate entry into the United States, approximate date of naturalization, and where they were residing at the time of naturalization before October 1991 can be found at the National Archives’ collection.

“United States, New England Petitions for Naturalization Index, 1791-1906” is an index that provides photocopies of naturalization documents filed in New England states.

The index in the National Archives-New England Region, consists of 3×5 inch cards arranged by state then the name of petitioner. National Archives. “A Gold Mine of Naturalization Records in New England,” August 15, 2016.