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Important
Immigration Reference at Your Fingertips
Passenger
and Immigration Lists Index
(CD 354)
Reviewed by Marthe Arends
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Raise your hand if you have an immigrant ancestor. Unless you
are of full Native American descent, your ancestors emigrated
to the U.S. at some point in the last four hundred years. Locating
the time of immigration, the ship your ancestor traveled on, and
family members who were included in the move is one of the most
daunting research projects facing genealogists. Ship's records
hold the most amount of information for researchers, but how do
you find out on which ship your ancestor sailed, what port they
sailed to, and when they arrived? The "Passenger and Immigration
Lists Index" can point you to the records which will give
you just that information. This CD contains information for approximately
2,750,000 million individuals who immigrated to the U.S. during
the period of the 1500s to 1940. The records were compiled by
Gale Research, Inc. from "passenger lists, naturalizations records,
church records, family and local histories, as well as voter and
land registrations."
The index is searchable by name, place, year, source code, or source
page number (wildcard searches are allowed). Unfortunately, you cannot
search by ship name, or record title, so you cannot specify a search
on the "Mayflower" or "Naturalization Records." The information is displayed
for each individual by clicking the Find Out Additional Information
About button, or you can copy the information to your Family Tree Maker
database.
Each individual entry includes the following information:
- Name Age (if known)
- Year of arrival
- Place of arrival
- Source code
- Page number
- Names of family members traveling with the individual (if applicable)
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April
22, 1998
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For example, a search on an ARENDS ancestor resulted in this entry:
- Place: Pennsylvania
- Year: 1731
- Primary Individual: Arend, Hans Bernhard
- Family Members: Wife Anna Maria Decker; Child Anna Catharina; Child
Henry; Child Johann Jacob; Child Johann Henrich; Child Johann Abraham;
Child Anna Elisabetha
- Source Code: 1031.9
- Source Name: BURGERT, ANNETTE KUNSELMAN. Eighteenth Century Emigrants
from German-Speaking Lands to North America. Publications of the Pennsylvania
German Society, 16/19. Birdsboro, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society.
Vol. 2: The Western Palatinate. 1985. 405p.
- Source Annotation: Date and port of arrival or date and place of
naturalization. Span indicates period between last mention of emigrant
in country of origin and first mention of his residence in the New
World. "Surname, ..." indicates a variation of a surname.
- Source Page #: 38
The fields are self-explanatory and offer a good reference to
further information (most genealogy libraries have the references
mentioned). The one item I found confusing was the role of the
Source Code — I suspect it was an internal reference number
Gale Research assigned to each source they used. I found the Source
Code question a frustrating one as I searched through the Introduction
and Family Archive for some reference to it; the introduction
simply notes that the Source code is a "code indicating the specific
source containing the immigrant record" but never explains the
code any further. It should be noted that you can conduct a search
using the Source Code which will display all individuals contained
in that resource. This is useful if you want to find, for example,
all of immigrants listed in Source Code #3703.1 "KANE COUNTY,
ILLINOIS NATURALIZATION RECORDS, 1857-1906" but you must know
the Source Code to conduct a search for each specific resource.
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A disclaimer in the Introduction states that the information
found on the CD is not necessarily accurate, since locations
mentioned can be the location of the immigrant on the date
stated, the destination, or the location of settlement.
Likewise dates might indicate the date the individual planned
to emigrate, date of death, or the date that document indicates
the individual was in a specific location. Gale Research
included those dates for the convenience of researchers,
stating "when someone is searching for an elusive ancestor,
all information is helpful."
The Passenger and Immigration Lists Index is a useful resource
for researchers searching for immigrant ancestors. Although
limited information is contained for each individual, the
CD should be used as a tool for locating source material,
and not seen as a final source of information. The full
citations of resources from which the material is compiled
allows researchers to track down further information on
their immigrant ancestors. If you are not sure your ancestor
is included on the "Passenger and Immigration Lists
Index," I recommend searching the Genealogy.com's CD
index before purchasing.
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Marthe Arends has
been involved in genealogy for 18 years. She has lectured on computers and genealogy
to many groups, has been the SysOp of a Fidonet genealogy BBS, has written articles
for a variety of genealogy publications, and currently writes fiction. Marthe has also written Genealogy
Software Guide and Genealogy
on CD-ROM, both published by the Genealogical
Publishing Company.
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