“Two weeks before I traveled to Italy with my mother in June, I decided to search the Internet for immigration information. On Ancestry I found a copy of the ship manifest with the names of my great grandmother – Elvira DiLello – coming to Philadelphia with two daughters (my grandmother Iola and my Aunt Aida). From that manifest, we identified the town in Abruzzo where my grandmother was born. When we got to Italy, we found a guide to take us to that town and we were able to locate the house my grandmother was born in. The look on my mother’s face as we took her picture in front of that house is a memory I will cherish my entire life. My grandmother died when my mom was a young woman, but in that moment, my mother seemed to be connected to her again.”

— Kathy Doherty
Mechanicsburg, PA

• Know your ancestor’s name and age: immigrants arriving in the United States for the first time may have used an ethnic translation of their given names (for example, John could be listed as Jan, Janos, Johann, Gianni or something else entirely). Search the Internet for translating given names if you can’t find your ancestor using the name you’re familiar with.
• Surnames may also have variants that need to be considered. Learn more about surnames in the areas from which your ancestor emigrated and you may find clues to surname variants, and learning about pronunciation can help you locate phonetic variants.
• Date of immigration can be found in records including census records between 1900 and 1930, death records, which may record "How long in the U.S.?", and obituaries. Creating a chronology using dates and places from other records you’ve found can help pin down your ancestor’s immigration date.
• Check brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mothers and father, even neighbors – any of these could have been traveling companions for your ancestor.
• Some passenger lists include occupations, which can help you distinguish between two immigrants of the same name. Be aware, though, that immigrants often listed “laborer” as an occupation, but may have found a new occupation once settled in America.
• Don’t let a father’s passenger list record fool you: it wasn’t uncommon for one member of the family, usually the family’s head, to come to America and send for the rest of the family after settling in. Your ancestor’s family, therefore, could be listed on multiple passenger lists, on different ships, in different years, and arriving at different ports.
• Look closely – witnesses, sponsors, neighbors, relatives both in America and back home, may be listed in your ancestor’s passenger arrival record or as travel companions.
• Check multiple ports. While New York was the port of choice for millions of immigrants, others traveled through Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and elsewhere – even when the family story says they arrived at Ellis Island.
• Look to Canada: for years, it was cheaper for immigrants to travel from Europe to Canada and then cross the border into America.
• Passenger lists were created at departure, too. You may find your ancestor in emigration records like the Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850–1934, Swiss Overseas Emigration, 1910–1953, or Swedish Emigration Records, 1783–1951 – all available on Ancestry.
• Many immigrants made more than one trip. Sometimes – particularly in later years when steamships made the trip easier and faster – several trips were made before immigrants finally settled.

What you’ll find in a passenger list depends on the time period. Early passenger lists may include little more than name, departure information and arrival details. But in 1893, the government mandated 16 new fields relating to marital status, last residence, final destination, literacy, financial status and more.

Starting in 1906, manifests required a physical description and place of birth and the following year added name and address of the passenger’s closest living relative in the country of origin (that means another relative to research).

And if your immigrant ancestor arrived prior to 1820, you may still be in luck: while ship captains weren’t required to submit passenger lists before this date, books and lists associated with certain early immigrants and immigrant groups do exist. Browse Passenger Lists at Ancestry for details.

Hungarian Christians, Russian Christians, Italians, Greeks and certain Slavic people were more likely to leave America in favor of their homeland than were their fellow immigrants. The primary reason for leaving was disillusionment – America didn’t live up to their expectations. But language difficulties, assimilation problems and the drastically different lifestyle in a big American city (trade life on an Italian vineyard for four cramped rooms in a tenement?) also fueled the hunger for home.

Groups most likely to remain in America included Turks, Spaniards, Jews, Irish, and Bulgarians.

Remember your ancestor didn’t just arrive, he or she left from somewhere, too. And that trail was marked at both the start of your ancestor’s journey as well as the end.

The German port of Hamburg, for example, was a popular departure point for emigrating Europeans from various countries. And you can access Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850–1934 online at Ancestry. Look for details to add U.S. passenger arrival lists you already found or to help you locate a U.S. list that keeps eluding you. And check your ancestor’s fellow passengers as well – you may find other relatives on board.

Can’t read the language? Not a problem. The following words plus tips in The German Research Center at Ancestry, will help you through:

• Zuname = surname
• Vorname = given name
• Geschlecht = Gender
• Männlich = male
• Weiblich = female
• Alter (in Jahren) = age (in years)
• Familienstand = family status
• Verheiratet = married
• Geschieden = divorced
• Ledig = single
• Verwitwet = widowed
• Beruf = occupation
• Stellung = position
• Staatsangehörigkeit = citizenship, nationality
• Bisheriger Wohnort = past residence
• Ziel der Umdwanderung = destination
• Ort und Staat = place and state

• Polen (Poland)
• Ungarn (Hungary)
• Österreich (Austria)
• Russland (Russia)
• Deutschland (Germany)
• Schweiz (Switzerland)
• Rumanien (Romania)
• Bulgarien (Bulgaria)
• Serbien (Serbia)
• Kroatien (Croatia)
• Belgien (Belgium)
• Niederlande (Netherlands)
• Italien (Italy)
• Spanien (Spain)