National Archives at New York City

Home > National Archives at New York City > Finding Aids for NARA's New York Facility > Passenger Arrival Lists

Passenger Arrival Lists

General Information

Immigration records, also known as "passenger arrival records," can provide genealogical information including:

  • a person's nationality, place of birth
  • ship name and date of entry to the United States
  • age, height, eye and hair color
  • profession
  • place of last residence
  • name and address of relatives they are joining in the U.S.
  • amount of money they are carrying, etc.

It can be useful to research other genealogy sources to aid your search for passenger arrival records. Naturalization records, for example, particularly after 1906, can contain specific details of a person's legal entry into the U.S. -- the exact date and means (ship name, for example) of arrival. Census records often show year of immigration.

Our Records

Microfilm Research

Our office has microfilm of indexes to passenger lists of vessels arriving at the Port of New York for the years 1820-1846 and 1897-1943. The passenger list records were created by the U.S. Customs Service (Record Group 36), and the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] (Record Group 85).  The passenger lists themselves are available at our office via the online databases listed below.

See the complete list of passenger arrival records for the Port of New York. 

You can read more about these microfilm publications, and the locations where you can view them, in the National Archives online Microfilm Catalog. Search for the exact publication number ("T715", for example) as the keyword.

Obtaining Copies

Self-service microfilm copies at our facility are $.40 per page. Certified copies are an additional $15 per record. Staff are available to help with research and copies. If you require a certified copy from microfilm, you must ask for staff assistance.

We are unable to search our microfilm for specific entries or provide reproductions in response to letters or telephone calls. The microfilm is available for free public use at our facility.

If you are not planning to visit our facility and conduct your research, you can submit an online request for copies of ship passenger arrival records. If you can provide sufficient information, they will conduct a search of the indexes and provide you with pertinent copies of ship manifest pages.

Online Databases

Researcher Note

Access to Archival Databases (AAD)
These databases contain information about passengers who arrived in the United States by ship between 1820 and 1912. The records were extracted from ship passenger lists in the Records of the U.S. Customs Service (Record Group 36). The records include passenger lists for four separate geographic areas: Italy, the United Kingdom and Ireland, Germany (containing records on German, French, and Swiss passengers), and Russia (containing records on passengers from the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the other countries of Europe). The National Archives offers the AAD database as a free public resource and it can be accessed from anywhere.

Ellis Island
The website of the The Statue of Liberty—Ellis Island Foundation, Inc has a searchable database for New York arrivals, 1820 - 1957: Their datasets include what used to be on the Castle Garden site (1830 - 1892).

Ancestry.com / FamilySearch
The New York arrivals, 1820 - 1957, have been digitized and are available via the Ancestry ($ subscription) and Family Search (free with login) sites. 
Ancestry 

FamilySearch 

Other Resources

Family History Centers

Another option is to contact a Family History Center nearest your location. Family History Centers are operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). They have purchased copies of National Archives passenger arrival records for various ports in the U.S. including the Port of New York. 

Online

Top