If you’ve been working on your family history for a while, chances are that you’re now facing the great chasm in genealogy: immigration. Especially for those in the U.S., most ancestors emigrated to the U.S. at some point from another country. However, it’s not usually so easy to find information on your immigrant ancestor, so it is helpful to know some hints for sifting for information on them.
Starting the Search: What to Know and How to Find It
Before you start your search, it is important to know some basic information on that ancestor. The more information you can find, the easier your search will be. Besides their name, approximate year/date of arrival, and port of arrival, it is also helpful to the name of the ship, the approximate age at arrival, the origin of the ancestor, and names of any traveling companions. This is especially the case for those who came to the U.S. prior to the 1900’s, since you will most likely be looking for passenger lists from ships, which may not be the most accurate or precise.
If you are unsure when your ancestor arrived, it is possible to look through the census records, which include useful information such as immigration date, place of birth, and naturalization history. Starting in the early 1900s, it is possible that such information on your ancestor will be on the censuses.
Resources for Immigration Information
The basic resources for finding data on your immigrant ancestor are ships’ passenger lists, immigration records, and naturalization records. Some immigration genealogy guides also suggest looking at passport application records, since there is a possibility that your immigrant ancestor applied for one to visit his or her country of origin.
Depending on the date of arrival, the records you look for will be different. The records before 1820 are mainly passenger lists on cargo ships’ cargo manifests—these may be harder to find, since they were not collected in a centralized fashion.
Digging Deep for Immigration Records
From the 1820-1890’s, your target will be Customs Passenger Lists collected by the Customs Service; from the 1890’s-1950’s, you will want to find Immigration Passenger Lists collected by port by the Immigration and Naturalization Services. Especially after 1906, it may be helpful to look at naturalization records (Declaration of Intentions for the 1800’s), which tend to be easier to locate and contain more information.
Immigration records, naturalization records, and censuses are public records, so it may be possible to find them through public records directories. For passenger lists specifically, you can begin your search by finding your ancestor on an index, whether it be online indexes such as those at genealogy.com or the Ellis Island Records or offline on books, CD-Roms, and microfilm from the National Archives.
Evolution of Surnames
In searching for your ancestor, it is important to try as many spellings of your ancestor’s name as possible, since their names may have been misspelled or Americanized. Then you may use whatever other clues such as approximate age of arrival to pin down your exact ancestor.
Your ancestor will have left an imprint on some sort of official record, provided they entered the U.S. in a legal manner. The problem is finding the record, and equipped with these hints and resources, you will be likely to find that elusive record.
