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  • Rebecca: Hello, I’m Rebecca Crawford, and I’m an archives specialist at the National

  • Archives and Records Administration. Katherine: And I’m Katherine Vollen, and

  • I’m also an archives specialist at the National Archives and Records Administration. And today

  • were going to be looking at immigration records.

  • Rebecca: Part of our immigration records, we have records of U.S. Customs Service that

  • are part of Record Group 36. Theyre going to cover the time period 1820 to 1890 with

  • the exception of Philadelphia which will start in 1800. We will also look at some examples

  • from the Immigration and Naturalization Service which are part of Record Group 85. Theyre

  • going to range from 1891 to 1957. On the screen youll see a list of the major ports that

  • we have relating to immigration. Within those ports, youll see records for the port of

  • Philadelphia which range from 1800 to 1952, for the port of New York from 1820 to 1957,

  • Baltimore for 1820 to 1957, New Orleans from 1820 to 1952, and San Francisco from 1882

  • to 1957. We also have some records for our border crossings here at the National Archives.

  • So, if your ancestors crossed the border from Canada into the United States, youre going

  • to look at the port of St. Alban’s. Those records will start in 1895 and go through

  • 1954. If you have an immigrant ancestor that came from the border from Mexico, then youre

  • going to be looking at the Mexican border crossings. Those records will start about

  • 1903 and run to about 1955. Katherine: Now, the type of information that

  • you can find in the immigration records is going to vary over time. But all of the immigration

  • records, both the Customs and INS records, will include the name of the ship, the name

  • of the ship’s master, the port of arrival and embarkation, and also the date of departure

  • and the date of arrival. The kind of thing that youll be looking for when you do genealogy

  • research, the early Customs records are going to include the name of the individual, their

  • age, their occupation, country of origin, and destination. Now, as I said, these vary

  • and theyre going to be different over time. And this is a really early record into Philadelphia.

  • This is the Brig Experiment coming in 1809. And if you take a look, you see all the damage.

  • Youve got holes. Youve got tape it looks like. This record is not in good shape. These

  • were actually stored on the docks before they were turned over to us. So, they were exposed

  • to water, other elements, vermin, rats could get at these things. So, were lucky we

  • actually have what we do have. But, this is actually mostly a cargo list. So, up here,

  • this is all cargo, and the passengers are down at the bottom. So, youll see there

  • are fourteen boxes of linen, one chest of glass, one chest of ceiling wax. And for passengers,

  • we have an example of Henry Vogt and his wife and three children. Now, the rest of the family’s

  • names are not listed. So, all we know is Henry Vogt had a wife, and he had three children

  • that came with him. We don’t know their names, but we do know that they were carrying

  • one trunk and some number bags of bedding. The number is not there. By 1846, we see a

  • little more information. This is the Brig Nautilus arriving in New Orleans in 1846.

  • There’s no cargo listed on this, but this is the entire passenger list. There are only

  • seven things listed. We have a man named Galtier, no first name listed. But, he is 36 years

  • old. He is a clergyman from France, and he is intending to settle in the United States.

  • Now, there’s a column on the right side of the page that says number that have died

  • on the voyage. And, when you start seeing columns with questions like that, you know

  • that the government is trying to track something. And, in this case, theyre trying to track

  • how many people died on the voyage. And, we see that one person died, and he’s listed

  • down here. Matthew, again I don’t know if this is his first name or his last name, but

  • he died during the passage. And, this is 1886, the Nova Scotian arriving in Baltimore. And,

  • this is a longer manifest. This is actually page six of a six-page manifest. So, you can

  • see with these numbers down here, there were 221 passengers and, in this case, we get the

  • individual’s name, their age, their sex, their occupation, the country theyre coming

  • from, state or town to which theyre going, and again it asks if anyone died on the voyage,

  • and it also asks what section of the ship they were in. And, these people were divided

  • into female steerage and male steerage. This entire ship seemed to be in steerage. So,

  • we see here Mary Calleghan. She was 17 years old. She was a domestic servant from Ireland,

  • and she was going to Chicago, Illinois. Now, I mentioned again we had the questionDid

  • anybody die on the voyage?” Down here, we have Maria and Pete Housen or Paulsen. It

  • actually says Housen or Paulsen. Since this information was taken down orally, it’s

  • very possible that the person providing the information had an accent, and the person

  • taking it down just couldn’t understand if it was Housen or Paulsen. So, they wrote

  • both. They were both born at sea on August 10th. And on August 12th, Maria died, and

  • Pete died on August 17th. So, they were less than a week old, and they both died.

  • Rebecca: Now, weve looked at what we can find on the earlier passenger manifests. On

  • the later passenger manifests, youre going to get more information. With these records,

  • you can get the name of the individual, names of any traveling companions, the age and personal

  • description of each person traveling, their occupation, their last residence, the name

  • and address of relatives theyre going to join, whether they can read or write, the

  • amount of money they are carrying, and you can also find out whether or not they were

  • a polygamist or an anarchist. This is an example of a passenger list for the S.S. Majestic

  • which arrived into the port of New York on March 27, 1923. As you can see, this manifest

  • is nicely typed. A lot of the manifests will not be and are very difficult to read. But,

  • youll also notice that at the top of this list, it is calledThe List of United States

  • Citizens.” And sometimes you will see that the lists will be separate. So, sometimes

  • youll have a list of aliens, and sometimes youll have a list of citizens, and sometimes

  • theyll be mingled in together. On this particular list, you have the names of each

  • passenger along with their age, their sex, their marital status, where they were living.

  • You also have a column that’s filled in with a bunch of handwritten notations. These

  • are going to the passport numbers for each of these individuals. So, it could lead you

  • to another source of information that we have at the National Archives. Down at the bottom

  • towards the end, youll have an individual. His name is Seth Van Slaars. Youll find

  • out that he is 21 years old. He is a male. He is married. He has U.S. passport number

  • of 2-4-1-4-6-9, and his address is listed as T.C. and Son, New York. And, upon further

  • investigation, it seems that T.C. Son in New York is actually the name of a travel agency.

  • Katherine: Thomas Cook and Son Rebecca: This passenger list here is for the

  • S.S. Rotterdam which arrived into New York City on August 17, 1921. This one, instead

  • of being a list of U.S. citizens, it’s actually a list of aliens and it tells you that at

  • the very top of the page. And it gives you a whole lot of information about the passengers.

  • Not only do you have page one, but youre going to have a second page to this manifest

  • which will give you even more information about each passenger. One of the people aboard

  • this ship is Jacob Burger. He’s 25 years old. He is married. He is a butcher. He can

  • read, and he can write. He was born in Rotterdam, and his last permanent residence is in New

  • Jersey. It also gives the address of his father who still lives in Rotterdam. It tells you

  • that his final destination is back to New Jersey. He paid his passage byworkaway”,

  • which means he worked on board the ship in order to pay his passage. He is carrying 25

  • dollars. It gives you the name of his wife Mrs. Burger and her address in New Jersey,

  • and it also gives you a personal description of Jacob Burger. So, from the manifest, we

  • learn that he is 5’ 5” with blue eyes, and we also learn that, unfortunately, he

  • is not a polygamist or an anarchist. So, you can see that the later immigration lists will

  • give you a wide source and a wide variety of different information.

  • Katherine: I want to point out two things about this list. One, Rebecca says unfortunately

  • he is not a polygamist or an anarchist because no one ever says yes. They wouldn’t be allowed

  • into the country if they admitted to that. But, if you ever find one that says yes they

  • are is a polygamist or an anarchist, please let us know because weve been looking for

  • these. And the second thing I want to point out is that we were giving this lecture at

  • one of our Genealogy Fairs, and a gentleman in the front row recognized this family. And

  • Mrs. Burger’s name is apparently Edna according to this researcher. I have no way to verify

  • this, but he told us that. Rebecca: Moving on, now we have the passenger

  • manifest of the S.S New Amsterdam which arrived into New York on June 11, 1953. Because this

  • is one of the later manifests, youll notice that it does not give as much information

  • about the individuals as the earlier manifests do. On this manifest, you have John and Augusta

  • Alexander. John was born in New York. Augusta was born in Germany. And you find the amount

  • of luggage that they are traveling with. They have five suitcases, one trunk, one box, and

  • two packages. Now, one of the things that you want to take note of on this manifest

  • is that under the passport number they both have the same number. So, it’s quite possible

  • that they are a married couple even though it does not specify this on the manifest.

  • Katherine: Now, I want to talk about availability of these records. All of the examples we just

  • showed you are available on microfilm at the National Archives building and at some of

  • our regional facilities. Their holdings will vary. So, it’s a good idea to check ahead

  • before you visit. Most of these records have been digitized and are available on Ancestry.com.

  • And we provide access at all of our facilities free of charge. Some of the records, the New

  • York records for 1892 to 1924, are available at EllisIsland.org, and CastleGarden.org has

  • a searchable database but no images of the New York arrival records between 1820 and

  • 1913. And of course you can always submit a mail order request, and you can download

  • a mail order form at HYPERLINK "http://www.archives.gov" www.archives.gov . And, if you have any further

  • questions, please feel free to contact us. Our general email is inquire@nara.gov .

Rebecca: Hello, I’m Rebecca Crawford, and I’m an archives specialist at the National

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