Explore online and printed databases and indexes for Germans emigrating from Germany to North America and other areas. Includes passenger lists and other emigration records for Hamburg, Bremen and other German ports.
While most of the Bremen, Germany passenger departure records were destroyed -- either by German officials or during WWII -- 2,953 passenger lists for the years 1920 – 1939 have survived. The Bremen Society for Genealogical Investigation, DIE MAUS, has put transcriptions of these surviving Bremen passenger records online.
German and American sources for German emigration to America by Michael P. Palmer.
Genealogists can submit queries about individuals migrating from Germany or search queries by country, surname, ship name, immigration year, places of origin or destination.
A series of books which indexes passenger arrival records of ships carrying Germans to U.S. ports.
Germans to America presently covers the period 1850-1897, and new books are added to the series every few months.
The Hamburg State Archives is creating a database from the Emigration Lists of Hamburg, with the years 1890-1908 currently available. Searches are free, but complete data on the emigrant requires a fee.
Because an especially high number of German emigrants left through Hamburg in 1872, the Family History Library created an index of the passenger lists for that year. This free online version of the 1872 index includes both the direct (traveling directly to the destination) and indirect (traveling by way of England or another port) passenger lists.
The Einwanderungszentralstelle Anträge [Immigration Center Applications] is a collection of over 400,000 naturalization applications by ethnic Germans living outside Germany during the period 1939-1945.
Passenger lists for a large number of vessels that sailed to America in the 1700s, plus links to other ship and passenger list sites. From
The Olive Tree.
Michael P. Palmer provides definitive reviews of two excellent books: German Immigrants: Lists of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New York and Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, as well as mentions of other printed resources.
This research outline from FamilySearch explains how to use the Hamburg passenger lists, which contain the names of millions of Europeans who emigrated through the port of Hamburg, Germany.
The Palatines and their migration are discussed in great detail by Don Spidell.
