SL Book Club

1. American Aids to Finding the
Home of the Immigrant Ancestor
Chapter 24
By Tina Sansone

2. • Most difficult – tracing ancestor across
ocean to specific place in the Old World
• Immigration records or ships’ passenger
lists
• No complete collection
–Difficult to use
–Information gaps
• Up to date indexes and records being
submitted now

3. Other Sources
• Court Records • Probate Records
–Naturalization • Military Records
& Citizenship • Church Records
• Land Entry • Other Records
Records –Old letters
• Certificates of –Family records
Vital Events
• Obits

4. Immigration Records
A. Customs Passenger Lists -
–Original Lists, Copies &
Abstracts, Transcripts form the U.S.
State Department
B. Immigration Passenger Lists
C. Customs Lists of Aliens
D. Other Immigration Records – located in
various depositories around the U.S.

5. Books
• The Planters of the Commonwealth
• Welsh Settlement of Pennsylvania
• The Complete Book of Emigrants
• Ulster Emigration to Colonial America
• Jewish Immigration to the United States form
1881 to 1910
• Two Early Passenger Lists, 1635-1637
• Index to the Names of Thirty Thousand
Immigrants
• The Early Settlers of Maryland
• Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Philadelphia
1800-1819
• Many others are listed in the book!

6. Locating & Using Passport Applications
Immigration Records
• All Passports filed U.S.
• Early Immigrant – 1791-1905 in the National
books may be a Archives.
great resource • Not required by law except
during part of Civil War.
• Recent Immigrant – • Early – letters of request
Ship’s Passenger – Expired passports, birth
Lists certificates, certificates of
citizenship, etc.
– Immigration • Many secured passports –
Passenger Lists they were in danger of
being drafted into military
– Customs service.
Passenger Lists