Where did your ancestors enter the United States?
By Elaine Powell
It was not until 1819 that Congress passed the first law to require captains of ships to compile a list of passengers, called a ship's manifest. And for the next four decades, records were kept--though not very carefully--by the states.
In 1855, the first official receiving station in the U.S. devoted solely to the processing of new immigrants was opened in New York City. The station, called Castle Garden, had previously been a fort, an amusement hall, and an opera house. Ellis Island welcomed its first immigrant on Jan. 1, 1892. One out of every three Americans can trace at least one ancestor back to the port of Ellis Island. However, on June 14, 1897, the entire station burned to the ground and most of the records of those who had arrived in this country since 1855 disappeared with the buildings. New red brick buildings were built on Ellis Island and those were opened on Dec. 17, 1900. For those of us whose ancestors did not come through Ellis Island, we need to look to the many other ports of entry to the United States. Those cities were:
Bangor, Maine
Bath, Maine
Kennebunk, Maine
Boston, Mass.
Barnstable, Mass
New Bedford, Mass.
St. Albans, Vermont Plymouth,
Mass.
Warren, Mass.
Providence, Rhode Island
Nantucket, Mass.
Bristol, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island New York
Philadelphia, PA
Baltimore, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland Alexandria,
Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Charleston, S.C.
Savannah, Georgia
Jacksonville, FL
St. Augustine, FL
Miami, FL
Key West, FL
Mobile, Alabama
New Orleans, Louisiana Galveston, Texas
Los Angeles, California San Francisco, California
Seattle, Washington
Copies of passenger lists for these ports are in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., or its regional offices, one of which is located in Atlanta, Georgia.
Most immigrants before 1965 came from Europe. The major ports from which Europeans left were:
Glasgow, Scotland
Londonderry (Derry), Ireland
Belfast, Ireland
Galway, Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
Cobh (Queenstown), Ireland
Liverpool, England
Southampton, England
LeHavre, France
Goteborg, Sweden
Bergen, Norway
Stavanger, Norway
Copenhagen, Denmark Bremen,
Germany
Hamburg, Germany
Antwerp, Belgium
Trieste, Italy
Rijeka (Fiume) Yugoslavia
Istanbul (Constantinople), Greece
Piraeus, Greece
Palermo, Sicily
Naples, Italy
Genoa, Italy
Marseilles, France
Rotterdam, Netherlands
[written by Elaine Powell, Historian/Archivist of the Central FL
Genealogical Society and published in Treasure Chest News, March, 2000.
Used with permission]
Genealogy Sites