Passenger Departures & Arrivals

Outward Passenger Lists and Passenger Arrival Records
Together, the departure and arrival records for passengers are among the most prized documents for family historians. These passenger records provide a link from old world to new and represent a step toward establishing a new life for future generations of their family.

Passenger Records Online
» AncestorsOnBoard.com — A cooperative project by FindMyPast.com and The National Archives (London). Officially launched in January 2007, this collection features Outward Passenger Lists (series BT27) for voyages departing the British Isles from 1890 to 1960. Destinations include Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America. Full-color images of passenger lists are available. There is a free name search which lists names, sex, departure year and port, destination port and county plus details of transcripts and images.

» Bremen Passenger Lists (1920-1939). A searchable database is currently available for 1920-1934.

» Link to Your Roots. Hamburg State Archive's Hamburg Emigration Lists (1850-1934) database with records (1890-1908) available for free name searching. A fee applies for further information.

» The Castle Garden lists over 10 million arrivals to the United States, some records overlapping the years covered by Ellis Island arrivals. Castle Garden, located at the tip of Manhattan Island, served as the first American immigration processing center from 1855 to 1890. The search capabilities are fairly basic, but the site is free. Advanced Search capabilities and large-volume extracts in Excel format are available at a cost of $45.

» Ellis Island Launched on April 17, 2001, the Ellis Island online database includes more than 25 million arrivals to the United States from 1892 to 1924. A search returns name, residence, year of arrival and age. Further details for each individual passenger record require a free registration. Passenger Records, Ship Images, Ship Manifests, and other items are available for purchase and proceeds support the ongoing efforts of this nonprofit foundation.

» SteveMorse.org A series of 'One Step Search Tools' have been developed over the last few years by Stephen Morse and a team of volunteers. Initially covering the Ellis Island database, this site now includes a range of powerful and easy to use tools for searching other large immigration, census, and other collections.

» Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild is a long-standing volunteer transcription effort for passenger lists and now has over 7,000 individual passenger lists. There are many pages on this site, but the search mechanism is not as strong as it could be. We link to another site that offers a better search mechanism for this large and important collection of web-based transcriptions.

» 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.