By Walter Hickey
These are the beginning of the "Immigration" lists, so called
because now the lists were turned in to the Immigration Service instead of to
Customs officers. The lists from 1820 to 6/15/1897 were for the most part simply
lists of names, with some occasional information about origin or destination.
The Immigration Lists in National Archives Microfilm
Publication T715, Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York,
1897-1902 now begin to be quite informative. Between 16 June 1897 and 5
September 1903, the manifests will provide most, if not all, of the following
information:
About the ship:
Name of Vessel, Port and Date of Departure and Date of
Arrival in New York.
About the passenger:
Name; Age; Sex; Marital status; Occupation; Able to
Read/Write; Nationality; Last Residence; Seaport of Destination in U.S.; Final
Destination in U.S.; Ticket to Final Destination; By whom was passage paid;
Having $30, if not, how much; Ever in US before...when & where; Going to join
relative: If so, name and address of relative. There are also four questions
regarding whether in prison or almshouse, a polygamist, a contract laborer,
mental & physical condition, and whether deformed or crippled.
The lists are arranged by date of arrival in New York. If you
do not know the name of the vessel and date of arrival, there is an
index...National Archives Microfilm Publication T519,
Index to Passenger
Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, June 16, 1897 - June 30, 1902.
There are two caveats to this index. First, this is only a
partial listing; not every passenger is in the index. Second, some of the cards
are illegible. The ink or pencil was so badly faded when the records were filmed
that in many cases some or all of the information cannot be read.
The index is Alphabetical by the surname of the passenger.
You must know the name the person was using when getting on the ship in Europe.
All of the information on the index card was taken from the
passenger manifest. The cards are too small to be copied, so when you locate a
card, you need only copy the information found at the bottom.
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On the left side of the last line is the port (NY) and the
date of arrival.
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On the right side of the last line is the name of the
vessel.
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Below the name of the vessel is a string of letters or
numbers which tell you where to look on the manifest. Reading from Right to
Left, these tell you the Volume Number in which the manifest is located, the
Line on which the passenger is listed, the Page (List) on which the passenger
is listed, and sometimes, the Port of Embarkation. The Page number will be
found in the upper right corner of the manifest where is says "List". Often
this cannot be read, or that corner of the page is missing. If you cannot find
the page number, simply go through the entire manifest looking at the Line
Number.
If a ship picked up passengers in Naples, Genoa, and Palermo,
and it says "Naples" at the bottom of the card, then you need only look at the
Naples pages on the manifest.
