Immigration records with Ancestry
Seeking new lives in new lands, many of our ancestors travelled to new countries and new continents. Others simply travelled on visits or holidays. Follow their adventures, tracking down the fascinating records on Ancestry that are here to help you
Search the immigration and travel records on Ancestry and learn about some of the most exciting chapters in your family’s story. Ancestry provides a rich range of record collections to help you trace ancestors on the move. These include passenger lists, citizenship and naturalisation records, border crossings and passports, crew lists, immigration and emigration books, and ship pictures and descriptions.
What might you learn?
Passenger lists will typically tell you the name, age, occupation, port of departure, ship name and destination. They may also provide the name and address of a relative. In addition to these key pieces of information, you may be able to spot further clues that you can follow up on, sparked by questions you can ask yourself when studying the records, such as:
• Are they travelling alone or with people from their home community?
• Do the dates of their travel shed any light? What might have motivated them to emigrate? (Famine? persecution?)
• Do you find them numerous times in the records, for instance taking frequent trips for business, leisure, adventure or visiting family? Or do you find them just the once, as they spend their life’s saving on a ticket, dreaming of a better future, but never to see their family back home again.
As well as those for passengers be sure also to explore the lists of crew. Build out your ancestors’ migration story, seeking pictures of the ship on which they sailed, using the Ancestry ship pictures collection; study the border crossing records for clues about your ancestor’s movement once they are in North America; and explore the naturalisation records which are packed with biographical information (such as a physical description of your ancestor, whether divorced, and any change of name).
Which records can help?
Particularly notable collections include those that will help you trace the arrival of people on British shores, such as the UK & Ireland Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960, and the England Alien Arrivals 1810-1811 & 1826-1869. For ancestors leaving Britain & Ireland, collections to search are those such as New York, US, Irish Immigrant Arrivals 1846-1851; New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Passenger Lists 1828-1896; Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships 1791-1869; Canada Arriving Passengers Lists 18651935, and New York, US Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island) 1820-1957.
To explore the full range in the Ancestry ‘Immigration & Travel’ collection, visit: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/categories/40/.