Passenger lists for ships entering U.S. and Canada

The United States & Canada

Immigration records show the details of the last place of residence in Ireland, passenger lists are much skimpier. For North America, where ships passenger lists were kept, most appear to have been deposited at the port of arrival, rather than departure; in general, the authorities were more concerned with recording those entering a country than those leaving. Passenger lists commonly show the country of origin, only. At best, the place name listed is the port of departure and is rarely the place of residence. Since there were no laws in place to either require Passenger Lists or to preserve those that were created, what Passenger Lists exist don't come anywhere close to covering the sheer numbers of people who emigrated from Ireland over the centuries.

"Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Philadelphia,1800-1819:The Philadelphia "Baggage Lists"," ed.Michael H.Tepper (Baltimore:Genealogical Publishing Co., 1986).
Customs Passenger Lists, post 1820 passenger lists are available through the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and can be viewed there or in their regional repositories.
Peter Robinson Settlement of 1825.
"Irish Emigration Lists 1833 - 1839" by Brian Mitchell and published by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. c1989 (ISBN # 0-8063-1233-5). Lists of Emigrants Extracted from the Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Counties Londonderry and Antrim.
"The Famine Immigrants, Vol.I-VII" ed.Ira A.Glazier (Baltimore; The Genealogical Publishing Company, 1988) (NL Ir 942 g 12), which records more than half a million Irish arrivals in New York between 1846 and 1851
A customs passenger list index for the port of Boston, 1847-91, is on microfilm at the Boston Public Library.
"Irish Passenger Lists 1847-1871" Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore,1988 (ISBN 0-8063-1206-8). Lists of Passengers Sailing from Londonderry to America on Ships of the J & J Cooke Line and the McCorkell Line. This book contains the names of about 27,000 Irish immigrants that sailed on these two ship lines. The lists were made by the ships owners, who kept them for business purposes.. The lists the passenger's name, age, and the residence of the passengers, along with some other data.
"Passenger and Immigration Lists Index" (3 Vols) Ed. P. William Filby & Mary K. Meyer. Gale, Detroit, 1981. (NL: RR 387 p 7), a consolidated index to a wide variety of lists relating to North American immigration from all over the world
Immigration Passenger Lists, from 1883 is available through the National Archives in Washington, D.C.and can be viewed there or in their regional repositories.

Even these, however, cover only a fraction of the material of potential value. There was a joint effort between Temple University's National Immigration Archives center and John F. Kennedy's Trust Center, in Wexford, Ireland to put passenger lists covering the period 1852 up to the late 1890's on a data base. The Kennedy center input all the information (there are supposed to be several million names of it) and the Immigration Archives have the data base; however, they have no funds to publish the works...

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