Polish Immigration to America: A History for Family Historians

Guide 2 of 5 · Polish Genealogy Guides

Between the 1850s and the First World War, well over two million people left the Polish lands for the United States. Knowing when your family came, from which partition and to which town tells you which records were created along the way, and where they are today.

Before the great migration

Poles were in America from the start: Polish craftsmen worked at Jamestown in 1608, and Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski fought in the Revolutionary War. After the failed uprisings of 1830 and 1863 small groups of political exiles followed. The first permanent Polish settlement was Panna Maria in Texas, founded in 1854 by families from Upper Silesia.

Za chlebem: “for bread”, 1870 to 1914

The mass emigration came in three overlapping waves, one from each partition.

Period	From	Why
1870s to 1890s	the Prussian partition: Posen, West Prussia, Silesia	land shortage, Bismarck’s campaign against Polish language and the Catholic Church, and cheap passages from Bremen and Hamburg
1880s to 1914	Galicia, the Austrian partition	the poorest province in the Habsburg lands, with tiny farms and many children
1890s to 1914	the Russian partition, Congress Poland	rural poverty, conscription into the Russian army and the aftermath of the 1905 revolution

Most emigrants were young peasants who planned to earn money and return. Many did: return migration among Poles was high, and some people crossed the Atlantic several times. The ones who stayed sent for wives, siblings and neighbors, and whole communities were rebuilt in American mill and mining towns.

The journey

Emigrants traveled by train to the ports of Hamburg and Bremen, and in smaller numbers Rotterdam, Antwerp and later Gdynia. Many crossed the border illegally to avoid military service or the cost of a passport. Most landed at Ellis Island in New York; others at Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston or Galveston, or through Canada. Each step produced records, which our four chapters of Polish-American records follow in order.

Quotas, war and the displaced persons

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 cut immigration from Eastern Europe sharply; under the 1924 law only a few thousand Poles a year could enter. The next large group came after the Second World War, when the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 admitted Poles who had been forced laborers, prisoners or soldiers and could not return home. A final wave followed martial law in Poland in 1981, when many Solidarity supporters settled in Chicago and New York.

Which records each wave left

Arrival	Best American records	Best Polish records
before 1892	Castle Garden lists, census, naturalization in local courts	parish registers, Prussian civil registration
1892 to 1924	Ellis Island manifests, 1906 naturalization forms, 1917 draft cards	parish and civil registers, passports, population registers
1924 to 1944	visa files, alien registration, C-files	interwar civil records, passport files with photographs
1948 to 1956	DP manifests, A-files, naturalization	Arolsen Archives, pre-war Polish records

Polish America today

Around nine million Americans report Polish ancestry, one of the largest ancestry groups in the country. The old neighborhoods have changed, but the parishes, cemeteries, fraternal societies and newspapers they built still hold the records that lead back to Poland.

Articles in this guide

Related records

Ellis Island and Castle Garden

Detention, inquiry and return trips

Exit permits and conscription clearance

How we can help

Immigration & Passenger Records reconstructs your family’s journey from the Polish village to the American town, and Ancestral Village Identification uses it to find the parish.

Next guide: Polish America