Beginning July 1, 1902, and continuing through 1943, there is an Index to the manifests. As with the earlier Index (1897-1902) this must be approached with caution.

Not all of the passengers are listed in the Index. Between 1902 and 1909, only the head of a family group would have an Index card. The presence of others traveling together might be indicated by the word “over” in that portion of the card saying “Accompanied by”.

Of greater concern is the fact that only some of the passengers are indexed. In other words, the Index is far from complete. There is not a card for every passenger/family who entered the port of New York. Additionally, due to poor filming/focus when these records were microfilmed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service back in the 1940's, some of the cards, even entire rolls are, at best, very difficult to read.

Despite these deficiencies, the Index is still the first place to look if you do not know the ship and date of arrival. There are far too many ships to simply read every manifest. For example, you could, and often must, read every manifest for an entire year searching for a passenger in the 1800's. In 1892, all the manifests are contained on 19 rolls of microfilm. Twenty years later, in 1912, there are 205 rolls just for the one year.

Before using the Index, you should have at least an idea of the year of arrival. The Index spans more than forty years, and there are different types of cards for various time periods. You do not want to compile a large list of citations only to find out that none could possibly be for the person you are looking for.

Between 1902-1908, you should look only at the “fill-in-the blank” cards. These generally provide the person’s name, age, sex, group & list the name of the shipping company, name of the vessel, nationality and date of arrival. These may be typed or handwritten.

The typical cards for 1907-1910 consist of one line of information providing the person’s name, line, page, vessel name, and date of arrival.

Cards from 1910 on also present one-line of information, giving name, age and sex, and then a string of numbers which read from right to left provide the volume, page and line on which the passenger is manifested. Later cards sometimes also give the month and year of immigration. As you can see, there is some overlap with the beginning and ending dates of these series of cards. By having an idea of the year of immigration, you can eliminate the need to copy every instance of the same name you are looking for. For arrivals after 1910, by making a note of the first and last volume number used in that year, you can filter out entries for the same name that are either too early or too late to be the person you are looking for.

For example, you know that a person arrived in 1922. The volume number for January 1, 1922, is 6991, while the volume number for December 31, 1922, is 7399, thus 1922 = 6991-7399. Any Index cards that do not fall within that range cannot be for 1922, thus they cannot be for that person in that year. If a person entered more than once, this same procedure will allow you to focus in on those arrival dates as well.

Once you have located the desired manifest, always check the pages at the end of the passenger list. The passenger manifests were filled out prior to departure from the foreign port. Although the information is as called for in U.S. Immigration regulations, in point of origin, they are foreign records. The manifests were not filled out at Ellis Island. They were checked at Ellis Island. Immigrants might be asked questions about the information provided by them on the manifests, but they were filled out at the port of embarkation...NOT at New York.

The sheets that were filled out at Ellis Island are at the end of the passenger manifest. These are for the twenty-percent who were “Detained” or “Held for Special Inquiry” upon arrival at Ellis Island.