The National Archives in Pittsfield has an extensive collection of ship passenger lists on microfilm. After census records, these are the second most used resource at the Archives.

As you work with passenger lists, the information you will want to record for properly documenting your sources is:

• Name of the passenger

• Name of the ship

• Name of the document, e.g., Passenger Manifest

• Date of the document

• Page number on which the passenger’s name appears

• Line number on which the passenger’s name appears

• Title of microfilm publication

• NARA publication number

• Publisher (Washington: National Archives)

• Microfilm roll number

To ensure that you have the required information in an accurate, durable and legible form write it on the face of each copy you make of a record as you create it.

If you share or publish your research, or record it in a genealogy software program, you will want to use a widely accepted standard for formatting citations. Examples based on Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence!: Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian are:

1. Jacob Bech entry; S. S. Patria List or Manifest of Alien Immigrants for the Commissioner of Immigration, 3 April 1898, page 2, line 18; in New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1897-1957; micropublication T715 (Washington: National Archives), roll 18.

4. Jacob Bech, S. S. Patria Manifest of Alien Immigrants, 3 April 1898; NA T715, roll 18.

New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1897-1957. Micropublication T715, roll 18. Washington: National Archives.