Passenger Ships Into New York

Passenger Ships Into New York

Step 1
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Find a year of arrival for your person, or at least an approximate time frame. This can be done through naturalization papers (after 1903 that will give you exact date of arrival, before that you can estimate the year based on info given), census information (gives you year of arrival on some censuses, soundexes give you year naturalized), or other family sources (obituaries can often say what year they arrived, family bibles, letters, etc, -- but be aware family stories as well as obituaries are done from a person's memory and are often wrong).

Step 2
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If you have an exact date of arrival from a reliable source, the Mormon Family History center Libraries offer the option of using CD catalog and order the film that ship is on. Go to the CD catalog, to search by film/fiche # and type in 1403751. This will bring you to the ship arrivals beginning in 1897. Scroll around until you get to the dates covering your arrival. NOTE: even naturalization papers can be off, as again they only list what the person told the court. If you don't find a match on the date you feel is correct, check several days before and after.

Step 3
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If you know your person arrived in NY between the years of 1897 and 1902, you have another advantage. These years were indexed in the 1930s under the WPA program, and you can look up your family by soundex code. The only problem is there are 2 films that cover each year for soundex code group, so unless you can pin it down to a moth (Jan-June 30 or July 1- Dec 31) you MUST remember to order both films to cover the year. Again, go to the CD catalog at any Mormon Family History Center Library and go to film/fiche search. Type in 1403751 which will bring you to the beginning of the year 1897. You will have to scroll around a lot to your soundex code and appropriate year. If you do not know your soundex code, there are papers in the Family History Center Library to help you, also sites on the web. Be sure to order both films for the year(s) you are searching, and keep an open mind about first names. Example, you may find older children came separately from parents.

Step 4
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If neither of the above steps apply to you, have a good cry and then console yourself to being in a large group of people stuck with the same situation! Most of us are in this group. It will take some determination, good eyesight, and not a little bit of money, but the payoff is finding that elusive ancestor! There are a few bright spots in this step, some of you may be able to find a date of arrival in some published work of passengers, such as the Famine Emigrants (for Irish arrivals during the great potato famine exodus) or Germans to America. These are not comprehensive, and just because you do not find your ancestor there it does not mean they did not come through NY, it only means they were left out of the book. Germans to America is notorious for omissions. There is also a microfilm series on searching the Hamburg Passenger Lists, however I have tried this for my family from Germany (after I could not find them in Germans to America) and could not find them. This either means (1) they left from Bremen, not Hamburg or (2) they were omitted from that also (not uncommon). So look in published lists of arrivals first, maybe you will be lucky. Then you can go to the CD catalog, go to search by film/fiche # and type in 0002246, that will start you on 1820 arrivals. Scroll around to the date you need.

Step 5
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If you have not been able to find them in any published index and you know a year or years, don't despair. Now you are in the company of most of us at one time. Go to the CD catalog and the Family History Center Library and go to film/fiche search and type in 0002246. This will bring you to dates beginning in 1820. Most years are covered by between 10 and 12 films. You order 1 or 2 at a time, and search the films for your people. One film done carefully can take an average of 4 hours to search. Some ships have over 3000 people in steerage, and you hope that the person who was writing that day had a steady hand and asked people "how do you spell that". So be open to different spelling of your name, and be sure to look for all the first names of the family. Many times family members came at different times for various reasons, this was the case in my family and if I had not been looking for other first names I would have missed them.

Film #s of NY passenger arrivals (beginning numbers)
1789-1919 #1415143
1820-1897 #0002246
1897-1924 #1403751

There are over 515 pages of films for NY arrivals and putting a number in will help you go right to that section. You may also look under New York-emmigration and immigration for the full listing, there are some others that may apply, this listing of actual passenger lists is at the end of that entry and you will have to hit page down MANY times to get to it. I would advise everyone to do that at least one time though, to familiarize yourself with what they have. Also, you will find the passenger lists themselves very interesting, and sometimes heartbreaking. At the end of each chip manifest is the list of detained passengers, often detained for rather inane reasons. It is very moving to remember these were also real people who were risking everything to come here, and sometimes with only $2 in their pocket.

If you either (1) have naturalization/other information which indicates your ancestor came in any year after 1902 or (2) you don't know when they came but you are certain (or at least fairly certain) they came into NY after 1902, you also can be grateful as there is a soundex for the years 1902-1947 which lists all immigrants by surname.

To do this, go to your nearest Mormon Family History Center Library and use the computer CD catalog, go to search by film/fiche # and type in 1379744 (that is just a number of a soundex in this series). The passenger lists for NY will come up and you will have to scroll around for the soundex you want. Since this covers all those years many surnames are on 2 or sometimes 3 films for popular surnames like Jones, McCarthy, Smith, or Wilson. Then you will have to know the first name of the ancestor who would have been listed as the head of the family. So be aware of first names for that reason...hopefully your surnames will be covered in one roll!

Compiled by Jessie Hooper, Volunteer, Fort Myers-Lee County Library, 4/2/97.