Directly quoting Ancestry.com, Passenger arrival lists are among the most highly prized records for documenting an ancestor’s immigration because of the significance of that move. Lists were not kept for every ship and some have been lost, but those that survive are becoming increasingly available online and new indexes afford us much better access to them. Because the forms used for passenger arrival records for the most part weren’t standardized until the twentieth century, earlier records will vary in content, but even the earliest records have a story to tell when you put them in the context of history, your family, and the journey itself.

Early passenger lists typically include the name of the ship, the names of passengers, ages, ports of arrival and departure, date, country of origin, and occupation.

20th century lists include even more details, giving the town or county of origin, and the names of other family members, destination, physical description, and more. Passenger lists are typically used by family historians to document their immigrant ancestor’s trip to their new country, but don’t overlook the possibility of finding ancestors who were visiting relatives, traveling for business, or for pleasure.

Auswandererlisten / Auswanderung (FHC)
Bremer Passagierlisten
Castle Garden / Ellis Island – Brief Histories
Ellis Island Passenger Lists
Emigration Museum in Gdynia
Finding Passenger Lists & Immigration Records 1820-1950’s
Germans to America (1850-1897) etc. / FHC Index / National Archives
Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives (Historical Ephemera Collections — 1880’s-1950’s)
Hamburg-American Line Passenger Lists at the Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives (1881-1939)
Hamburg Passenger Lists
Holland-Amerika Lijn (1900-1969) — Expected to be available to the general public in 2022)
Manifest Markings — Jewishgen.org
New York Passenger Lists (1820-1891)
New York Passenger Arrival Lists – Ellis Island (1892-1924)
New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists (1909; 1925-1957) — includes aircraft arrivals
On the Water
One-Step pages by Stephen P. Morse
Passenger Manifest — Sto Lat: A Modern Guide to Polish Genealogy
The Emigration Museum in Hamburg
TheShipsList
Vorpommersches Landesarchiv (Find address to request regional Auswanderung Records)