Immigration Records & Ships Passenger Lists

• American Family Immigration History Center (Ellis Island), http://www.ellisislandrecords.org, allows you to do a search of more than 22 million passengers who came to America through Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924. After you search for a passenger by name, you can edit the search to include gender, year of arrival, ethnicity, port of departure, and name of ship. To view the full record you must register with the site. You can also purchase an original ship manifest and ship image.
• American Immigrant Wall of Honor, http://www.wallofhonor.com/, memorializes immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. The wall is engraved with the names of immigrants whose family or friends have paid a fee for inclusion of the name. Names are searchable. Results include name, country of origin, and panel number on the wall.
• Immigration and Ships Passenger Lists Research Guide, http://home.att.net/~arnielang/shipgide.html, is designed for new researchers, but includes tips, links and help of interest to more experienced researchers as well. "The goal of this Guide is to help you to use Ships Passenger Lists and other Immigration records in locating the origin of your ancestors in Europe, fill in gaps in your family history, and to lead to other avenues of genealogical research." An introductory section explains how to use the site, and other sections cover what you need to know about your ancestor to proceed; how to do research if your ancestor arrived during specific periods of time; getting pictures and information about the ship; and finding naturalization and passport records.
• Mayflower Web Pages, http://members.aol.com/calebj/mayflower.html, developed by Caleb Johnson, is a cornucopia of information on the Mayflower. It offers historical information about the Mayflower and its voyage; genealogies of Mayflower passengers; passenger lists for the Anne and the Fortune; wills; documents; information on Native Americans, women, and girls; and other topics too numerous to mention.
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), contains indexes to the passenger lists of vessels arriving after January 1, 1820, http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/immigration/immigrat.html. There are also resources on Canadian and Mexican border crossings and information on how to obtain naturalization records (see the Guides, http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/genindex.html#guides).
• The Ships List, http://www.theshipslist.com, was established "to assist those seeking information on the vessels which brought their ancestors to their new home, be that the United States, Canada, Australia, or another part of the world." The site includes ships passenger lists, schedules, wreck data, pictures of vessels, immigration reports, and other information which is not readily available, along with links to other sites of interest. There is also information about mailing lists related to ships.

Originally written by Peggy Jobe, International Documents Librarian and Webmaster, Government Publications Library, University of Colorado at Boulder. Substantially revised and updated by Christine Hamilton-Pennell, Owner and Consultant, Mosaic Knowledge Works.