Ancestry Magazine

Canadian Passenger Ship Manifests provide sources for American genealogical researchers who are searching for a record of their ancestors' arrival or passage through Canada.

Canadian Passenger Ship Manifests provide sources for American genealogical researchers who are searching f or a record of their ancestors’ arrival or passage through Canada. These manifests have been microfilmed by the National Archives of Canada and are found at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. They are available for interlibrary loan anywhere in Canada. American visitors to Canada can find complete sets on microfilm reels in Toronto, Ontario, at the North York Public Library in the Canadiana Room on the sixth floor, and at the Archives of Ontario on Grenville Street. They are also available at the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Salt Lake City, Utah, and are available through any of the local LDS family history centers in Canada and the United States.

The manifests, virtually none of which are indexed, are available for Canadian ports up to 1919. Manifests created after 1919 have not been released by the National Archives. The quality of the microfilmining and the legibility of the handwriting in the manifests ranges from good to poor; most reels are somewhere in between.

The information is arranged on the reels chronologically by year and date. There are two to five reels per year for larger, more frequently used ports, such as Halifax and Montreal/Quebec City; there may be fewer reels for smaller ports, such as North Sydney, Saint John, and some Pacific coastal ports. The manifests for most years overlap on at least two reels. Each reel covers several months, usually from one to two years.

Manifests are available to researchers for the following ports: Montreal/Quebec City, 1865-1919, 98 reels; Halifax, 1880-1919, 43 reels; North Sydney, 1906-1919, 20 reels; Saint John, 1900-1918, 15 reels; Vancouver, 1905-1919, 11 reels; Victoria and small coastal ports, 1905-1919, 18 reels.

The manifests list passengers who were immigrants and tourists as well as passengers whose final destinations were Canada and the United States. Some manifests contain primarily immigrants or tourists; others contain prim arily passengers destined for Canada or the United States. Many manifests contain a combination of these categories of passengers.

The manifests contain two types of information: information about the ship and information about the passengers. Information about the ship includes name of ship, master’s name, dates and places of arrival and departure, landing time, weight, total passengers by class-first, second, or third, and steerage-medical information, and passenger total by nationality or race.

Information about the passengers includes the name, age, sex, occupation, country of birth, destination, whether able to read and write, and amount of cash. Passenger manifests created after 1908 have a specific column that asks for origin and religion.

The availability of the above information on these manifests varies from one manifest to another. In some cases, little more than name, age, birthplace, and destination are included; this is often the case with large groups of immigrants whose destination was western Canada or the United States. Occupation may simply be listed by some general term, such as “worker” or may be blank entirely. Often, manifests of tourists destined for Canada or the United States simply list occupation as “tourist.” The exact birthplace is rarely recorded; generally, only the country is listed.

The exception is found in manifests from ships that carried passengers from the British Isles almost exclusively. These ships had a different type of manifest which asked for more specific information, including the passenger’s last place of residence in the British Isles. When a specific city or town is provided, this information can be an important clue to determining a possible birthplace. The ethnic origin may be accompanied by the name of the country of a passenger’s birth-for example Russian German, Russian Jew, Russian Pole, providing a clue about the individual’s background. The information found in these manifests is basic for European immigrants .

Probably the manifests’ greatest use is to provide a record of a person’s landing or passing through Canada, and to establish the names and number of relatives who accompanied him or her. The basic problem, however, is finding the person in the manifests. This problem may be relatively easily solved if you know the name of the port and year of arrival. If you don’t, be prepared for a long search, because there are no name indexes to these manifests. In this case, you must choose an approximate year and a port for which to begin your search. Most immigrants, however, came through either Halifax or Montreal/Quebec City. Searching these manifests is a slow process and takes approximately one or two hours per reel.

There are some additional manifests for ships that came to Canada via New York City or via eastern U.S. ports. There are 37 reels for New York City, covering the period from 1905 to 1921, and 11 reels for eastern U.S. ports. These manifests contain only the names of passengers who stated the intention of proceeding directly to Canada.

Because no overall index to the passenger manifests exists, select a likely port of entry and date of arrival as a starting point for a search. The reels are organized by port, so examine a port and time period covering several months or years before and after the suspected time of arrival.

An additional source that may be of use if your ancestors arrived between 1906 and 1920 is the manifest lists. Designed for port authorities, these lists were created for each ship entering an eastern port between 1906 and 1920. Passengers were listed alphabetically in them but few details other than the person’s name were included. These lists can also be divided into classes: first, second, third, and steerage. They can be searched faster than the manifests and may help to establish whether a particular manifest should be examined.

Canadian passenger ship manifests can be of great use in establishing evidence of arrival and providi ng basic genealogical information. The lack of a name index, however, is a significant problem when little information is known.

These manifests are, nevertheless, of great value. They provide evidence of arrival and basic genealogical information for an ancestor whose destination was Canada or the United States, regardless of whether the individual was an immigrant or a tourist. Some manifests, in fact, list a majority of passengers whose destination was the United States. All manifests generally indicate the city to which the passenger was going. They provide excellent sources for tracing ancestors who may have come through Canada to settle in the United States.

Glen Eker has been researching his own family history for a number of years. He has published twelve articles on genealogical research in Generations. His ongoing research on census records and genealogy is available through the Family History Centers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.