Family History Tips--Part 26

Using U.S. Census Records to Find Your Ancestors on Ships’ Passenger Lists

by Brenna Corbit, Instructional Services Librarian

Piecing together your family history on American soil can be quite easy, but finding them on a manifest, a list of passengers on a ship, can be somewhat difficult. However, one method is to use U.S. Census Records to locate your ancestors’ arrivals into America.

First, let us look at the census records. The 1850 to 1880 censuses list every name in a household with country or state of birth. By 1880, the censuses started listing household relationships, a vital clue when trying to trace families’ arrivals into America. The 1890 census was mostly lost in a fire. However, the following census decades are quite valuable.

The 1900 to 1930 censuses not only state household relationships and place of birth, but also identified an individual’s year of arrival into America, as well as immigrant status—al (alien), pa (petitioned), and na (naturalized). The years of arrival for an individual can be confusing when each decade presents a different year: e.g. 1900—arrived 1890; 1910—arrived 1889; 1930—arrived 1894. Information closer to the fact is probably going to be more correct. In this case, I would put my search filter as 1891 give or take a few years. As for the 1940 census, the year of arrival was not a question, and neither was it asked in 1950, which will be released in 2022

The censuses not listing a year of arrival still offer clues that can be gleaned from individuals in a household. I will use a German Philadelphia family in the 1880 census to illustrate. Herman Hessler and his wife Francis were both born in Baden, but all their children were born in Pennsylvania. The eldest son, Frederick, is 13, making the parents’ arrivals somewhere around 1867. The parents more than likely married in Philadelphia. In another case, Henry Bennet and his wife Maria, an English family living in 1880 in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, had nine children, with the first five born in England. The last English born son is George, 11, and the next U.S. born is James, 10. This family came to America about 1870. It would also be much easier finding them on a manifest since Henry and Maria would have five children of the same names on board the ship. In some cases, a husband preceded his family and called on his wife and children after establishing himself in the U.S. Now comes the tricky part—finding their ship and port of arrival.

Not all came through Ellis Island, although most did. Look for other ports—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, as well as the west coast. Some even came via Canada. I researched one Jewish family that came from Eastern Europe via China, Japan, and then Seattle Washington. The ship’s manifest stated their final destination as Philadelphia—talk about taking the long route. Therefore, keep options open when searching.

As for the manifests, there are many types depending on time of arrival. Manifests in the 1700s are usually transcriptions and often do not include ages and those who are under 16. Not until the mid-to-late 1800s do we start seeing all family members listed with ages and country from which they are emigrating. The best manifests are those from the early 1900s. By the 1940s, manifests started looking only a little better than those of the later 1800s.

Early 20th century manifests are one to two-page treasure troves of information—name, age, occupation, marital status, place of birth, nationality, ethnicity, last residence, contact of a person in the old country, destination, name and address of who you are meeting in the U.S., who paid for the trip, how much money they had on them, whether or not an anarchist or polygamist (my favorite), health status, and height, hair and eye color. WOW! Also, see if they were detained. The end of each manifest in this period would have lists of detainees, which would state who was coming to pick them up at the port.

Contrary to popular myth, your ancestors’ names were not changed when arriving in America. The manifests were recorded in or near the country from which they arrived. They may have become Anglicized such as Schmidt becoming Smith or a given name such as Pierre becoming Peter. Research given name equivalents for the country you are searching.

Another obstacle is for indexers trying to interpret probably some of the most atrocious penmanship known to humankind. Be sure to be open to various spellings and use a lot of truncation: e.g. Mierzejewski—M*r*ski.

Next time, I will show you how to use the Hamburg lists as a finding aide to some of the ships’ manifests.