Ancestry Magazine

Records made during immigration often contain information about immigrants' lives before they left their homelands for a new life in America. And researchers and government officials have produced indexes to many of these sources.

Many immigrant descendants want to know the town or village where the family lived before emigrating. Records made during immigration often contain information about immigrants’ lives before they left their homelands for a new life in America. Among these records are passport applications, ship passenger lists, naturalization records, and several types of records kept by local authorities in port cities. Researchers and government officials have produced indexes to many of these sources.

The easiest way to find these indexes is by using a local library. Most communities have several libraries: city, college or university, county, and a local history society or genealogical society library. Often, the books in their collections are described in a card or computer catalog. Generally, books are described three ways in a library catalog: under an author entry, under a subject entry, and under a title en try. If you know a book’s title or its author, you can find it in the author/title catalog, in which titles and author’s names are filed alphabetically.

A librarian, in preparing a catalog entry for a book, determines the subject of the book and places an entry in the subject catalog describing the book. Many libraries use the subject headings established by the Library of Congress. These subject headings have been published in Library of Congress Subject Headings, 3 vols., 18th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1995). Libraries often have copies of these volumes available to library users. To search for books in a library that cover a specific topic, look up the topic in these catalogs. A reference librarian can also help you isolate the subjects librarians would choose to describe immigrant indexes. Ask a reference librarian to help you select subjects to search under.

To find books in a library that describe immigrants, look under the topic Emigration and Immigration-United States or Emigration-Germany (or-France or -Italy). Narrowing the search by using subheadings may speed up the search: Emigration and Immigration-United States-Indexes is a subject heading that focuses only on immigration indexes. The subjects Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, German-Americans will also contain indexes of immigrants from these ethnic groups. Many indexes are found in library catalogs under subject headings like French-American-Genealogy.

Since many local library catalogs are on computer, you can select a subject search option and enter subjects of interest. Most computer library catalogs also permit key-word searches. These searches prompt the computer to scan the descriptions of all books in the catalog for the words you enter and will list all books in the catalog containing these words in their descriptions.

Still another way to find all of the books in a library that deal with a specific topic is to check the library catalog for books that are already fa miliar to you. Searching by their authors or title for the books described below will retrieve catalog entries that also show the subjects under which the books are filed in the catalog. This procedure can help you identify the subject headings to search under for similar books.

You may not know the titles of published immigrant indexes to begin your investigation. Several titles that will help can be found in Robert Balay, ed., Guide to Reference Books, 11th ed. (Chicago: American Library Association, 1996). This book is divided into sections about specific topics; section AK deals with genealogy, and includes several immigrant indexes. Search for these titles in library catalogs to determine the subject headings used for books of this type.

Many public, college and research libraries have computer links to thousands of other libraries. Normally, reference librarians can describe their access to catalogs of other libraries. The interlibrary loan librarian in every library can also check catalogs of other libraries for books not available locally. After a thorough subject search of local library catalogs, check the catalogs of other libraries for books about immigrants and order them through interlibrary loan. You are likely to find the following published immigrant indexes in libraries.

Several indexes name immigrants to North America before the American Revolution. P. William Filby, Passenger and Immigration List Index ( Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1981), with its supplements, covers approximately two million immigrants to the United States from Europe. Most came prior to 1820, when federal passenger lists for most ports were begun.

Persons named on federal passenger lists are not included. Peter Wilson Coldham has also focused on pre-ninteenth century immigrant indexes. His best-known work is The Complete Book of Emigrants, 4 vols. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987-93). These volumes list immigrants from the British Isles to the Un ited States from 1607 to 1776. One of the newest publications identifying early immigrants to North America is The Great Migration Begins, 3 vols. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995). The first two volumes are available at present. This work contains sketches of early immigrants representing some 900 New England families that arrived between 1620 and 1633.

Researchers whose ancestors came from Ireland should check The Famine Immigrants: Lists of Irish Immigrants Arriving at the Port of New York, 1846-1851 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985-86). The New England Historic Genealogical Society’s Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the Boston Pilot, 4 vols. (Boston, NEHGS, 1989-), edited by Ruth-Ann M. Harris and others, is an on-going project to identify Irish immigrants to the U.S. beginning in 1831. Volume 4 updates the index to 1860.

To trace early German emigrants to Pennsylvania, examine Annette K. Burgert, Eighteenth-Century Emigrants From German-Speaking Lands to North America (Breinigsville, Pa.: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1983). Early Philadelphia German passenger lists (1727-1808) are indexed in Ralph B. Strassburger, Pennsylvania German Pioneers (Norristown, Pa.: Pennsylvania German Society, 1934), and The Wurttemberg Emigration Index, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1986), edited by Trudy Schenk, Ruth Froelke, and Inge Bork. This work indexes records created by the Duchy of Wurttemberg to track emigrants from 1750 to 1900.

Perhaps the largest index of German immigrants is Germans to America (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1988), edited by Ira Glazier and P. William Filby. It lists persons who identified their homeland as Germany on passenger lists at Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports and San Francisco. The index begins with 1850. To date, more than fifty volumes have been published, covering immigrants to about 1880. Check local libraries for the lat est volumes. The index volumes for 1850 through 1855 include passenger lists in which 80% of the passengers cited Germany or a German state as their place of origin. Subsequent volumes include all passenger lists naming anyone from Germany or a German state. So-called Germans from Russia are not included in these volumes because they normally listed Russia as their place of origin. Refer to Russian immigrant indexes for more information. For the period from 1847 to 1871, another index of German immigrants picks up some persons missing in the 1850-1855 volumes of the Glazier-Filby work. German Immigrants: Lists of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New York 1847-1871, 4 vols. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985-93), edited by Gary J. Zimmermann and Marion Wolfert, focuses on passenger lists for immigrants embarking for America at the German port of Bremen.

Origins of Dutch immigrants may be found in two works by Robert P. Swierenga: Dutch Emigrants to the United States, South Africa, South America, and South East Asia, 1835-1880 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1983), and Dutch Immigrants in U.S. Ship Passenger Manifests, 1820-1880 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1983). Italian ancestral hometowns may be listed in Italians to America, edited by Ira Glazier and P. William Filby (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1992). This on-going project begins with entries for 1880; five volumes have appeared to date. These editors have also produced a new series, Migration From the Russian Empire (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995). It includes many ethnic Germans as well as other minorities who listed Russia as their place of origin on passenger lists filed at U.S. ports of entry.

The books described above are only a few of may available in U.S. libraries. Search library catalogs regularly to find new indexes.

Raymond S. Wright III is an associate professor at Brigham Young University where he teaches genealogical research methods, European famiy history, and German and Latin Paleography. He writes regularly for a variety of genealogy publications and lectures at conferences.