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German Genealogy Resources
Ship Records and Passenger Lists
"Germans to America, lists
of passengers arriving at U.S. ports."
The book series Germans to America is up to volume 60 now. This series indexes
passenger arrival lists from US ports, giving names, ages, occupations, and
sometimes places of origin for many German immigrants, grouped by families. It
also lists the ship, ports, and the date of the passenger ship list. The
quality of the transcription varies, and because of its inclusion criteria, it
is to be considered an incomplete index to German passengers, but it still can
be quite useful. Make sure you consult the original passenger lists also!
These series can be found in many large research and genealogical libraries
and should be consulted there. Broderbund publishes most of the book series in
CD form: Family Archive
CD 355: "Passenger and Immigration Lists: Germans to America, 1850-1874",
and Family Archive CD
356: "Passenger and Immigration Lists: Germans to America, 1875-1888".
These CDs contain some entries that are absent in the book series. The
passengers are listed strictly alphabetically on the CDs; this often makes it
difficult to discern family groups properly. They also do not list the port of
arrival; for that information you must consult the books instead. Germans to America : lists of passengers arriving at U.S. Ports 1850-1897.
Edited by Ira A. Glazier and P. William Filby. Wilmington, DE : Scholarly
Resources, 1988- v. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN: 0-8420-2279-1 (set)
LC E184.G3 G38 1988.
Michael
Palmer's Immigration page As good as it gets! comprehensive bibliography
Passenger Lists
Compiled by the Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild (ISTG).
The Guild began its work in 1998 and is transcribing ship passenger lists that
are posted to its web site.
The Shipping
List: Ship Wrecks. Listing of ship wrecks in the 1800s.
German Lists
Hamburg (1850-1914, with the exception of January-June 1853).
- The original lists (a
collection of 555 large volumes dating from 1850 to 1934 with over 5 million
names) are deposited and house in a climate controlled vault in the Hamburg State
Archive [Staatsarchiv Hamburg]. Their age and condition prevent their
use by the public. However, microfilm copies of the lists (486 reels of film) and of a variety of
contemporary manuscript indexes are deposited in the Family History Library in
Salt Lake City (which can be consulted either at the Family History
Library itself or at any LDS (Mormon) Family History Center outside Germany
(restrictions imposed by the Staatsarchiv Hamburg
forbid lending these microfilms to any Family History Center within
Germany).
- The extract Direct and Indirect Lists for 1850-1855 do not require
separate indexes, as they are arranged alphabetically by the first letter of
the surname of the head of household. Separate indexes for both the Direct
(the Direct Index) and Indirect Lists
(the Indirect Index) exist from 1855 through 1910; for the period 1911-1914
and 1920-1934 there is a single index for both series. The indexes for 1855-1914
are arranged by the first letter of surname of the head of household, then
chronologically by the date the vessel left Hamburg; the indexes for 1920-1934
are in strict alphabetical order.
- The late Hamburg genealogist Karl Werner Klüber compiled a card
index to the Direct Lists for 1850-1871, and to the Indirect Lists for 1854-1867.
This index is deposited in the Staatsarchiv Hamburg, ABC-Straße 19, D-20354 Hamburg,
which will search this index for a fee. The Family History Library has a copy of this
index on 46 microfilm reels.
On the original
cards, he used different colored pens to make the years of emigration. The
colors were not captured by the microfilm.
- A 15-year index, covering the Direct Lists for 1856-1871, was compiled
on typed cards by LDS volunteers in 1969. It is easy to use, but incomplete.
- Eric and Rosemary Kopittke of the Queensland (Australia) Family History Society
have written several books variously titled Emigrants from Hamburg to Australia
or Australasia, various years. These cover ships bound from Hamburg to ports
in Australia and New Zealand, and include transcripts of newspaper accounts and passenger lists.
- "Link
to Your Roots." The State of Hamburg, with the support of corporate
sponsors, is digitizing every name on the Hamburg Passenger List and is
making it available on the Internet. The project is directed by Paul Flamme,
and is housed directly in the Hamburg State Archives. The project employs 28
transcribers who work directly from the original volumes. The transcribers
work with a library of lexicons and historical gazetteers at their side to aid
in identifying the points of origin for the emigrants. There is a charge for
the complete record of an individual.
- Smith, Clifford Neal.
Reconstructed Passenger Lists for 1850:
Hamburg to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the United States,
German and Central European Research Monograph No. 1 (4 parts; Arizona:
Westland Publications, 1980-1981). 60 passenger lists.
- Smith, Clifford Neal.
Reconstructed Passenger Lists for 1851 Via
Hamburg: Emigrants from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Russia,
Scandinavia and Switzerland to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the
United States, and Venezuela, German and Central European Research
Monography No. 2 (5 parts in 6); Arizona: Westland Publications, 1986-1987).
85 passenger lists.
Sonja Höke-Nishimoto and Daniel M. Schlyter edited an alphabetical index
of the Direct and Indirect Lists for 1872 only.
This index is available from the Family History Library (film 1183696 Items 3-6).
Passenger Lists, Hamburg 1850-1934.
Ocean ship passenger lists.
Additional records in the Staatsarchiv Hamburg and also available on
microfilm through the Family History Library on film 1732431, include 3 volumes listing the
ships that sailed from Hamburg carrying emigrants, 1850-1914; 2 volumes
listing people going overseas on merchant (as distinct from emigration) vessels,
1871-1887; lists of returning Jewish emigrants, 1905-1907; lists of prospective
emigrants denied emigration due to disease or other causes, 1906-1913;
lists of passengers coming to Hamburg with departure dates, 31 Dec 1913-12 Aug 1914;
lists of emigrants from Kowno (Kaunas) 1897-1899; and lists of Jewish orphans
(pogrom victims) from Russia, 1906.
Another source that may be of use are the Reisepaß-Protokolle,
1851-1929, passport documents maintained by the Hamburg Allgemeines
Polizeiliches Meldeamt, and held by the Staatsarchiv Hamburg, also available
through the Family History Library.
Bremen
- The majority of emigrants from Germany, especially the
Pomeranians, sailed not from Hamburg but from Bremen. Bremen began keeping
passenger lists in 1832. These lists no longer exist. In 1875, because of a
shortage of space, the government authorized the destruction of the lists for
1832 to 1872, and instituted a policy, in effect until 1909, of preserving
only the lists for the current and two most recent years. In 1931 the
surviving lists, from 1907 onwards, were deposited with the Statisches
Landesamt Bremen, where they were destroyed during a bombing raid on the city
on 6 October 1944. The archives of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce [Handelskammer]
contain what appears to be a complete set of duplicate passenger lists for the
years 1922-1939.
- "Reconstruction" of Bremen lists from advertisements by
shipping agents (signatures of passengers), or reports of disasters at sea of
of mistreatment of apssengers on board emigration ships, all published in the
emigration newspaper, Allgemeine Auswanderungszeitung [AA]; Ein Bote
zwischen der alten und neuen Welt (Jg. 1-25; Rudolstadt 1846/47-1871),
have been published as follows:
Smith, Clifford N.,
From Bremen to America in 1850: Fourteen Rare
Emigrant Ship Lists, German-American Genealogical Research Monographs,
22 (Arizona, 1987).
Smith, Clifford N.,
Passenger Lists (and Fragments Thereof) from
Hamburg and Bremen to Australia and the United States, 1846-1849,
German-American Genealogical Research Monograph, 23 (Arizona, 1988). Extracted
from AA, Jg. 1-3; include 3 additional "notes of appreciation" from Jg.
4 (1850) which pertain to ship voyages made in 1849.
Smith, Clifford N.,
Gold! German Transcontinental Travelers to
California 1849-1851, German-American Genealogical Research
Monographs, 24 (Arizona, 1988). 300-odd partial ship lists extracted from AA, Jg. 3-5 (1849-1851).
Stettin
- Printed and handwritten ship passenger lists compiled by the various
shipping companies that transported emigrants to America survive among the
record groups Pommersches Polizeipräsidium and Schifffahrisdirektion Stettin in the Vorpommersches Landesarchiv,
Martin-Andersen-Nex;ouml;-Platz 1, D-17489 Greifswald, Germany. The lists
cover the years 1869-1892, and contain about 500-800 passengers per year.
Friedrich Wollmershäuser, a private researcher, (Herrengasse 8-10, D-89610
Oberdischingen, Germany) has obtained copies of these passenger lists, and
intends to publish them.
Other
American Lists
For the authoritative account of American passenger arrival lists, see:
Tepper, Michael. American Passenger Arrival Records (2nd ed.,
Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1993). Published Lists (by Port
of Entry):
All Ports.
- Passenger Arrivals 1819-1820; A transcript of the list of passengers who
arrived in the United States from the 1st October, 1819, to the 30th
September, 1820; with an added index, orginally published as Letter from the
Secretary of State, with A transcript of the list of passengers who arrived in
the United States from the 1st October, 1819, to the 30th September, 1820
(Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1821; reprinted Baltimore, Maryland: Clearfield
Co., 1991).
- [Baltimore,Boston, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia] Glazier, Ira A.
and P. William Filby, ed., Germans to America; Lists of Passengers
Arriving at U.S. Ports, vols. 1ff. (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly
Resources, Inc., 1988ff.). The series indexes passenger arrival lists from US
ports, giving names, ages, occupations, and sometimes places of origin for
many German immigrants, grouped by families. It also lists the ship, ports,
and the date of the passenger ship list. The quality of the transcription
varies, and because of its inclusion criteria, it is to be considered an
incomplete index to German passengers, but it still can be quite useful. Check
the original passenger lists also.
List of volumes and dates (vol. 1-
/1850 - )
List of
known holding libraries.
- Addenda for 1850-1855 are published in
The German Connection
by the
German Research Association.
Baltimore
- Tepper, Michael H., ed.
Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Baltimore,
1820-1834; From Customs Passenger Lists (Baltimore: Genealogical
Publishing Co., 1982).
Galveston, Texas
- Galveston County Genealogical Society.
Ships Passenger Lists, Port
of Galveston, Texas, 1846-1871 (Easley, South Carolina: Southern
Historical Press, 1984).
New York
-
Castle Garden New
York Port of entry prior to 1892
-
Ellis Island
New York Port of entry 1892-1954
- Steuart, Bradley W., ed.
Passenger Ships Arriving in New York Harbor,
Vol. 1 (1820-1850) (Bountiful, Utah: Precision Indexing, 1991).
- Zimmerman, Gary J. and Marion Wolfert, ed.
German Immigrants: Lists
of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New York, ...; With Places of Origin
(Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.): (1) 1847-1854 (1985); (2) 1855-1862
(1986); (3) 1863-1867 (1988); (4) 1868-1871 (1992).
Philadelphia.
- Tepper, Michael H., ed.
Passenger Arrivals at the Port of
Philadelphia, 1800-1819; The Philadelphia "Baggage Lists" (Baltimore:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1986).
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