Find Branches of Your Family Tree With Immigration Records

As most people begin their research into their family tree, they find that their family has moved, sometimes over large distances, over the generations. This can make it a little more difficult to find the next branch of family history that they are searching for.

The good news is that there are now a number of locations online where you can search immigration records.

Immigration records can hold a lot of family research information. Among some of the things that immigration records may have are:

Name
Nationality
Location of Birth
Age
Height
Eye and Hair Color
Occupation
Relatives They Had in the U.S.
Previous Address
Address Where They Are Going
Date They Arrived in The U.S.
The Ship They Arrived On

These can be a huge help in your family research as you are able to piece together where a branch of your family tree moved to in the 'New World' and where they set up residence. Often, once a family found an area to settle down, the next few generations would stay in this area, which may help you in your next levels of research into your family history.

So, where should you look to find family history immigration paperwork?

EllisIsland.org

For the most part, immigrants who traveled to the new world came through Ellis Island in New York. There were usually rather detailed records being kept of their arrival as well. Now many of these records are available online at www.Ellisisland.org . This is a database of over 22.5 million names of those immigrants who came to the U.S. through New York's Ellis Island. The database covers those who came off of the ships from 1892 – 1924.

Castle Garden

If you know your family members came over before 1892, you may need to take your family research to Castle Garden, www.castlegarden.org instead. This has the names of over 10 million immigrants who came into the United States before Ellis Island Opened in 1892. Before that time, Castle Garden was the immigration center and these records have those who came through from 1830-1892.

National Archives

Another family research source for those who know they have family that came to America during the Irish Famine is the National Archives http://aad.archives.gov/aad/ . This database has the names of over 600,000 people who came into New York between 1846-1851 during the famine. If you know some of your family tree was in Ireland, this may not be a bad place to take a look.