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Almost always include:
Each immigrant's name
Age
Sex
Occupation
Country of origin
Marital status
Last residence
Final destination in the U.S.
Whether been to the U.S. before (and if so, when, where and how long)
If joining a relative, who this person was, where they lived, and the nature of the relationship
Whether able to read and write
Whether in possession of train ticket to final destination
Who paid for the passage
Amount of money the immigrant had in their possession
Whether the passenger had ever been in prison, a poorhouse, or in an institution for the insane, or was a polygamist
immigrant's state of health
May also include:
Whether detained for health or other reasons
Personal description (post-1906)
Place of birth (post-1906)
Name and address of closest relative in the home country (post-1907)
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General compiled sources such as
P. William Filby's Passenger and Immigration Lists
or the FHL Catalog:
http://www.familysearch.org/
Search/searchcatalog.asp
National Archives:
http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/
immigration/immigrat.html
Online & CD transcription projects
Emigration Records
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To discover when your ancestor arrived in the U.S.
To find out which country your ancestor was from
To learn roughly when he or she was born
To find the occupation of your ancestor
To uncover family relationships
To find evidence of chain migration
To perhaps find the name of a county, town or place more specific than a country
To learn the dividing line time-wise of when to focus your research in the U.S. and when to focus on the country of origin
To learn marital status
To learn place of origin in the "old country"
To find names and addresses of other family members
To find clues to initial (perhaps temporary) settling places in the U.S.
To learn of previous stays in the U.S. (leading to other arrival records)
To determine literacy
To get a feel for economic status
To help reconstruct the immigrant journey and experience
To seek clues to motivation for emigration (e.g., poverty, possibly avoiding draft in home country, etc.)
To learn of health problems
To learn of family members who may have been turned back or who died before formally entering the U.S. (e.g., at sea or at hospital)
To learn of ancestors born at sea
To discover an ancestor's physical appearance
To learn the place of birth
To learn of other places the ancestor may have lived before emigrating
To obtain information to lead to emigration records
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