The Crossing: Immigration and Passenger Records

Chapter 3 of 4

The crossing produced the one record almost every American family has already seen: the passenger manifest. It is also the record most often misread. This chapter is about getting everything out of it, and about the arrival records families do not know to look for.

The passenger manifest is the record almost every American family has already seen, and the one most often misread. These articles cover the ports, the manifests themselves and the arrival records most searches never open.

Records in this chapter

Ellis Island

Ellis Island and Castle Garden Records

New York arrivals, 1855 to 1924

Other ports

Baltimore, Philadelphia and Canadian Border Crossings

Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and Canada

Reading a manifest

How to Read a Passenger Manifest

What each column and annotation means

Detention & return

Detained Aliens, Special Inquiry and Return Migration

Birds of passage and second crossings

Research guide

Why the village name on your ancestor’s papers is probably wrong

What we do with these records

Immigration & Passenger Records locates every crossing a person made, at every port, and reads each manifest in full. Ancestral Village Identification uses the same records to establish the parish.

Next chapter: Life in America