Are you wondering what kind of information you can learn through passenger lists where your ancestor is named? In this post, discover how to use these valuable genealogical records to find new details about your ancestor’s life.
I am always very excited when I find my ancestors or other relatives in passenger lists, since it almost always leads to the discovery of new information for me.
Passenger lists are also very helpful for those of us who are researching ancestors who immigrated to the country where we live. For example, those of us who had ancestors come to the United States within the past 200 years may be able to discover the passenger lists for the voyage that they took.
What kind of information is on passenger lists?
The exact information that you will find on passenger lists will depend primarily on when your ancestor traveled. More recent passenger lists tend to include more information than older records.
Immigration and customs laws greatly affected the type of information that is included on the lists. Older lists, such as those from the 1800s, may only contain the name and age of the traveler, along with details about the ship.
Newer lists might contain extensive personal information about your ancestor. You may also find that if your ancestors were wealthier, more information was collected about them during their travels.
Below, I will use a real passenger list from June 12, 1935 to illustrate what you might be able to learn about your relatives from finding records of their travel in the form of a passenger list, also known as a passenger manifest or passenger arrival record.
Name and age of traveler
One bit of information that you will find on passenger lists is the name and age of the person who is traveling. Names are usually listed with the last name first, and then the first name.
For example, in the image below you will note that Henry Wheelwright was 69 years old.
On older records, we usually see the name of the traveler, their age and then their gender, in consecutive columns.
Date of travel
Another very important detail you will find on passenger records is the date of travel. For my research, this is often one of the most important details I can learn about my ancestors.
Since most of my ancestors are immigrants, I find it very useful to know the exact date that they arrived in the United States. This is because I know that I should ignore any US records from before that date for people with the same name as my ancestor, since my ancestor hadn’t yet arrived to the US.
Name of ship
You will also be able to find the name of the ship upon which your ancestor traveled. This information is usually located at the top of the page.
If you don’t see the name of ship, which sometimes happens with older records, flip back a few pages to the beginning of the passenger list for that ship. There, you will find all of the details about the ship that carried your ancestor on their journey.
From the image above, we can see that the name of the ship was the Statendam. It can sometimes be interesting to research the ship itself, since it can help you understand what the trip may have been like for your ancestor.
The city of departure
The city of departure is another detail that you can always find on a passenger list. However, you might have to flip back through a few pages to find the beginning of the list of passengers.
The passenger list that we are examining for this article is for a trip that was taken from the port of New York.
I find it useful to know the port where my ancestor left the country they were traveling from, especially in the case of ancestors who immigrated to the US. My immigrant ancestors were not wealthy, so they would choose the closest port that they could get to with ships traveling to where they wanted to go.
This can often be a clue about where in their native country they may have originally lived.
Destination
The destination of the ship that your ancestor traveled on can also be found on the manifest or passenger list. This information might be at the top of the page, but if you can’t find it there, check a few pages back in the collection to find the first record of the list.
This particular passenger record is very informative because not only do we see that the ship was heading to Rotterdam, a city in the Netherlands, we also get to see the address of the place where the passengers were planning on staying while in the United Kingdom.
The image above shows that Fred and Annie Scott were planning on staying on Cross Green Lane in Halton Leeds.
If you were researching this couple, the address of where they were staying could be a potential clue to a discovery about their life. It could be the address of a relative in the UK, for example.
Occupation of traveler
Another detail that we can often find about our ancestor from passenger lists is their occupation. Knowing their occupation can help you identify your ancestor on other types of genealogy records.
In the image below, you will note that Shirley Quimby was reported to be a scientist.
On older passenger lists, we often see a general “laborer” or “farmer” as the occupation for a large number of passengers. This is especially true for those who traveled in steerage.
However, we can find examples where our ancestors were adamant about having a different occupation. My great-great grandfather traveled in steerage, but he took care to have his occupation listed as “architect” during his travels from Holland to New York.
Citizenship information
You may also find citizenship information on passenger lists. There may be a column to the right of your ancestor’s name that notes their citizenship.
In the image below, we can see that Alice Miller, secretary, is a citizen of the United States.
Citizenship can be a helpful detail to learn about your ancestor because it can help you know where they came from. Additionally, if you are able to find evidence of more trips, you can find out if the naturalized in the country they were living in.
For example, I found a passenger list where my newly-widowed Polish great-great grandmother was returning from a trip to Poland with her young son. On the passenger list, they were both listed as being US citizens.
This helped me be sure that the record belonged to them, since the names and ages for both of them lined up. From this record, I was able to find an address for where they were living at the time.
It also provided some context into her life, as it had been clearly important to her to go back to Poland for some reason. Hopefully, someday I will be able to find out what she did on the trip.
Traveling companions
You will also be able to find the names of people who were traveling with your ancestor. Most often, this comes in the form of other people with the same surname.
For example, we see in the image below that Fred H Scott and Annie Scott both have the same name. Fred is a plumber and Annie is a housewife, and they are also the same age.
I would be confident saying that Fred and Annie are probably married to each other. This is a good clue for finding additional records about them.
Place of residence
You might be able to find the country of residence, or even a state or province of residence, on passenger lists. If the passenger list contains this information, it will likely be listed in a column to the left of your ancestor’s name.
We see that Alice Miller is also a resident of the United States.
I have seen other records with more detailed residence data. What you are able to find will depend on various factors, but it is always worth taking a look.
Who collected the information on the ship manifest or passenger lists?
The information that you will find on passenger lists was likely collected by a clerk at the moment that your ancestor purchased their ticket for passage. If there was a language barrier between your ancestor and the clerk, there could be minor errors in spelling.
The details that you see on these lists were not collected by government employees, but the type of information that the clerks requested was often in compliance with the governmental regulations of the destination country, if any, of the time.
For example, the Steerage Act of 1819 was enacted by the US Congress led to major changes in the ocean transportation industry. This law addressed the conditions on board ships for passengers, as well as required captains to collect and submit demographic information about their ships’ passengers to the government.
Conclusion
I hope that this article has helped you understand more about the type of information that you can learn from passenger lists, and how to make the most of it!
I also hope that I have inspired you to try to find as many passenger records as you can.
If you have any questions about something that you read in this post, or if you would like to share a story about an interesting passenger record that you have found, please join in the discussion below.
Thanks for reading today!