U.S. Customs Passenger Lists
Genealogy 104: Sources Between 1820 and 1865, Lesson 2
The United States has been keeping passenger lists since 1820. These lists can be essential sources of information on immigrants arriving in the U.S. between 1820 and 1865, but to use them effectively one must understand how and why they were created.
Background
The number of immigrants coming into the United States and the information collected about them has always been influenced by world events and by national immigration policy. During, and immediately after the American Revolution, immigration to the New World slowed to a trickle. After all, who wants to immigrate to a country in the middle of a war? Within a decade of the end of our Revolutionary War, a revolution broke out in France, and this war affected much of western Europe. Many European ports were blockaded, which obviously limited departures, and hence arrivals in America. The defeat of Napoleon and the end of the war in 1815 unleashed a torrent of emigration from Europe, much of it to the United States. More immigrants arrived than ever before. This sudden increase in passengers and the opportunity to make more money put pressure on ship owners to carry as many passengers per trip as possible. The result was overcrowded ships and bad travel conditions.
Government Requires Lists of Arrivals
Alarmed at this situation, the recently formed U.S. government took over jurisdiction of immigration to the still new United States. In 1819, Congress passed a law regulating the maximum number of passengers allowed per ship, based on its total tonnage. Although the allocations were not very restrictive and did little to improve the conditions of the passengers, the law also mandated the keeping of a list of arrivals. These lists are truly a Godsend for today's family historians.
The Bureau of Customs was charged with the keeping of these lists, hence the lists from 1820 through about 1891 (the ending dates vary by port) are called the "Customs Passenger Lists." The bureau provided blank forms to the shipping companies, which the captains (usually their mates) prepared on board. These forms were then submitted to the collector of customs at the port of arrival. Eventually, these lists, or the ones that survived the ravages of time, ended up in the custody of the National Archives, where they have been microfilmed for preservation and improved access.
The law also required that copies and abstracts of the list be made for the State Department. With the loss of some of the original lists, these copies and/or abstracts are an invaluable source for filling those gaps. Therefore, when the original lists were microfilmed, the National Archives included available copies and abstracts in the microfilms. Thus we have a fairly complete collection of documents identifying more then 20 million persons who arrived during this time period.
Government Requires Lists of Arrivals
Alarmed at this situation, the recently formed U.S. government took over jurisdiction of immigration to the still new United States. In 1819, Congress passed a law regulating the maximum number of passengers allowed per ship, based on its total tonnage. Although the allocations were not very restrictive and did little to improve the conditions of the passengers, the law also mandated the keeping of a list of arrivals. These lists are truly a Godsend for today's family historians.
The Bureau of Customs was charged with the keeping of these lists, hence the lists from 1820 through about 1891 (the ending dates vary by port) are called the "Customs Passenger Lists." The bureau provided blank forms to Picture of Young Manthe shipping companies, which the captains (usually their mates) prepared on board. These forms were then submitted to the collector of customs at the port of arrival. Eventually, these lists, or the ones that survived the ravages of time, ended up in the custody of the National Archives, where they have been microfilmed for preservation and improved access.
The law also required that copies and abstracts of the list be made for the State Department. With the loss of some of the original lists, these copies and/or abstracts are an invaluable source for filling those gaps. Therefore, when the original lists were microfilmed, the National Archives included available copies and abstracts in the microfilms. Thus we have a fairly complete collection of documents identifying more then 20 million persons who arrived during this time period.
In 1977, the lists for the five major ports, but not all of the copies, were transferred to the Balch Institute Center for Immigration Research at Temple University, Philadelphia. For the last 20 years, individuals at the center have been transcribing and publishing the lists (as described below). In addition, the State Department transcribed the passenger lists from late 1819 through 1832, apparently as part of their report to congress. These lists, prepared in nine volumes and now deposited at the National Archives, were not included in their microfilm publications. These State Department lists are also incomplete, but they may fill some gaps where copies of the original lists do not exist.
Many Ports to Choose From
Although passengers arrived at about 100 different ports over the years, most ports saw only infrequent traffic. Sometimes just a couple of ships, or none at all, arrived in a given year. During the course of these early years, most of the immigration traffic tended to be directed to one of five major ports:
- Boston
- New York
- Philadelphia
- Baltimore
- New Orleans
Although Philadelphia had been the most popular port during the colonial era, within the first two decades of federal immigration regulation, New York emerged as the preferred port of arrival. By 1850, more immigrants arrived in New York than in all other ports combined.
The port of arrival an immigrant choose was based on many factors. If they were joining family or friends in the New World, they often chose a port close to where those persons lived. If they had a specific destination, such as a colony in Missouri, they may have chosen a port near that destination, or from which good connections were available (for Missouri, New Orleans was a logical choice). Sometimes such choices led to the minor ports, such as Galveston, Texas, for immigrants heading for that state (or independent republic if they arrived before 1845).
However, the overwhelming reason for choosing the port of arrival was the ticket agent. Agents generally represented one specific shipping line, and obviously only sold tickets for travel on that line. Therefore, agents, more than any other factor, influenced the port at which the immigrants arrived.
Research Strategy
Since researchers seldom know the port of arrival for immigrants during the nineteenth century, they must plan on searching all available ports. Even immigrants who settled in one of the port cities, may have arrived in a different port, notably New York.
Content of the Lists
The 1819 law required only six items be recorded:
- The name of the passenger
- Age
- Sex
- Occupation
- Nationality
- Intended destination.
Some lists include information about the passengers' baggage, or if they had died during the voyage. However, the law did not require, and the lists did not record, the town from which the immigrants left. This is often a great disappointment to researchers who eventually do locate their immigrant relatives.
In a very few cases, the shipping authorities, apparently copying lists made at the port of departure, included towns or counties in the old country. These may be the last residence of the immigrant, or the town of birth (or perhaps some other point on the journey). However, in these cases, they are invaluable in suggesting a place to begin research in the home country. The most notable collection of such lists are certain arrivals in New York from the port of Bremen, Germany. For about 25 years, about 25 to 30% of the arrival lists included towns of origin in Germany. These lists, with about 37,000 names, have been published in four volumes by Gary Zimmerman and Marion Wolfert as German Immigrants: Lists of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New York (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1985-1993)
Experience has also shown that sometimes the lists and copies differ slightly. The most common difference is that some copies only included the given initials, rather than full names of the immigrants. In a very few cases, the original lists seem to include towns of residence, while the copies only indicate the country of origin.
Use for Immigrant Origins Research
Since the lists seldom name the specific town of birth or previous residence, their use in determining an immigrant's origin is limited. However, it is very useful to try and locate the actual arrival lists for your immigrants. As noted above, the name, and age of every immigrant appears on the lists. Often, in the course of our immigrant origins research, we do not learn all of this information. We may learn about one immigrant, and perhaps his or her father. However, often entire families immigrated. As outlined in an earlier lesson, it is vital to know about all the immigrants in a family. Often the significant clue to the family's origin may only be recorded for one individual in the entire family. Therefore, learning about the complete family is an important part of your research if you hope to unravel a family with a common surname.
Further, if you know all of the family who immigrated, then you will be better able to identify that family in records of their native country. This is especially important for persons with common surnames. Also, there will be times when the records in America do not fully identify the immigrants. Perhaps the immigrant died early, and appears in few records, or perhaps the ages you find in the census and other sources are so diverse, that you are not sure just when the immigrant was born. Ages in a passenger lists are typically more correct than in later American sources.
You may also learn the names of persons who traveled with the immigrant. In a recent case, seeking the Bavarian Uhl family in Pennsylvania, we noted Michael Boumer in the census living next to the family. He was from Bavaria, and was close to the wife's age. A published source gave the wife's maiden name as Brunner, so Michael was a possible brother. Upon finding the Uhl family in the arrival lists, we found Barbara Baumer, 45, as well as Johan and Michael Baumer, ages 24 and 23 next to them on the ship list. Michael's age matched the entry we had found on the census. Clearly these two families had immigrated together, likely as relatives. We now had the names of other immigrants, as well as the German spelling of the surname. These will be invaluable clues as we continue to identify the actual town where these families lived in Bavaria.
Indexes
The primary access to these Customs lists are the card indexes prepared by the WPA in the 1930s. Some of these indexes are arranged by Soundex code (as used in the later census indexes), while others are strictly alphabetical according to the name as it appears on the list. It appears that index cards were generally created for each immigrant, not just the heads of families. This makes it easier to locate persons with common names, as you can seek each member of the family in the index, finding those who arrived at the same date.
New York: The good news is that there are indexes for all of the ports for which Customs Passenger Lists exist. The bad news is that the index for the largest port, New York City, is very incomplete. In fact, the New York index only indexes the copies (not the originals) of the arrivals from 1820 through 1846. There is no index to New York arrivals from 1847 through 1896 (with the beginning of the Immigration Passenger Lists, discussed previously). There are, however, some substitutes, discussed below. It is, however, important to understand that even the pre-1846 index is incomplete. The Uhl family, noted above, arrived in 1845 at the port of New York, but they were not in the index. Fortunately, their naturalization documents had identified the date of their arrival, so we located them by finding the arrival list in chronological order. Since that index was created from the copies, and not the original, it is obvious that some lists, and likely many, were not indexed.
Boston: Indexes for the other ports do not present quite the same problem, but have unique situations themselves. For Boston, the original lists prior to 1883 were destroyed. However, the State Department transcripts, as well as the copies of the original lists cover the time period to 1874 fairly well. However, Massachusetts mandated the keeping of a state copy of each list, beginning in 1848. These lists extend to 1891, so they cover the gap between 1874 and 1883, as well as provide overlapping coverage for the customs copies for the post-1848 period. This situation has created two important indexes. The state lists are indexed separately, while the copies are part of a supplemental index described below.
Philadelphia: Philadelphia, perhaps due to their experience in keeping passenger list of foreigners in the 18th century, kept list of arrivals dating from 1800 through 1906. The first 20 years are actually cargo manifests and are called the "baggage lists." Since they only include persons who checked baggage on the ships, the lists will not include every immigrant, but it appears that a large percentage of immigrants are on these lists. These lists, as well as the post 1819 customs lists through 1906 are all indexed together.
Baltimore: Many of the Baltimore lists were destroyed, and even where some lists exist, there may be gaps of entire years in the collection. However, from 1833 through 1866, the City of Baltimore required separate lists be kept. These city lists were used, rather than the abstracts, when the National Archives microfilmed the lists. Consequently, there are two indexes to use when dealing with these lists. The extant federal passenger lists from 1820 through 1897 are indexed separately from the city lists. Both indexes use the Soundex system.
New Orleans: New Orleans arrivals are documented on original lists, copies, and even cargo manifests, from 1820 to 1903. In addition, a separate set of microfilms include quarterly abstracts cover 1820 to 1875 and may help fill some gaps in the lists. These lists are indexed to 1900, but the index omits lists dated before 1853.
Other: One other index must be mentioned, as it includes the available lists from the minor ports, as well as some entries from the major ports, except New York. Supplemental Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Atlantic and Gulf Coast Ports (Excluding New York) 1820-1874 is an index to the copies and abstracts filed with the National Archives, but not the original lists. Thus it provides some coverage for all ports through its dates, but is usually used after the port specific indexes have been searched.
Transcripts for Ethnic Groups
In recent years, several groups and individuals have begun transcribing arrival lists for specific ethnic groups of immigrants. The first large group covered by these transcripts was the Irish immigrants who arrived in New York from 1846 through 1851. In seven volumes, this set reproduces the key information chronologically from each list, while an index at the back of each volume provides access to every name in the transcripts. Unfortunately, many more Irish arrived after these dates and are not indexed.
The largest collection of ethnic transcripts is the series of Germans to America with more than 60 volumes covering arrivals, at New York and other ports, from 1850 into the 1880s, with additional volumes continuing the series to later dates. This series, as well as the Irish, and newer series on Italians and Russians, were produced from the original lists deposited with the Balch Institute Center for Immigration Research. However, each of these series has limitations. They have varying inclusion rules, sometimes only including the immigrants if the ship had a certain percentage of passengers with that ethnic group. Sometimes the designation of the ethnic group was unclear, regarding whether it was based on the port of departure, the country listed on the ship list, or the surname itself. In any event, these lists reproduce lists for upwards of 4 million immigrants. Many of them arrived at New York after 1846, for which there are no other indexes.
Smaller ethnic groups have also been covered by other compilers. These include Czechs, 1847-1906, Greeks, 1885-1910, Armenians, 1891-1901, Swedes, 1820-1850, and others, as well as a set of Dutch emigration lists from 1835 through 1880. Many of these are works in progress, and may not include every person in every list throughout the time period. However, in each case, they add thousands of names to the ranks of easily found immigrants. Finding titles and authors for these publications is as easy as accessing www.familysearch.org and searching the Family History Library Catalog on-line. Search under UNITED STATES, EMIGRATION/IMMIGRATION.
Conclusion
It is very likely that 90% or more of the passengers who officially immigrated to the United States during the 1800s were recorded and preserved on one or more passenger lists. Locating your immigrant and his or her family will provide invaluable clues to the original parish records in their homeland.
About Genealogy Research Associates
Karen Clifford is the Founder and President of Genealogy Research Associates. She is an Accredited Genealogist, an instructor in an Associates Degree program in Library Science-Genealogy and Computers at Hartnell College (Salinas, California) and Monterey Peninsula College (Monterey, California). She has authored several family histories and textbooks including Genealogy & Computers for the Complete Beginner; Genealogy & Computers for the Determined Researcher; Genealogy & Computers for the Advanced Researcher, and Becoming an Accredited Genealogist.
Karen currently serves as Vice-president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and Vice-president of the Utah Genealogical Association (UGA). She is a member of the California State Genealogy Alliance, the Association of Professional Genealogists, the National Genealogical Society, and the New England Historic Genealogical Society. In 1998 and 1999, Karen served as Director of UGA's Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy.
She has received several awards for her volunteer work in the genealogy community including the FGS Award of Merit and the FGS Outstanding Delegate Award.