Maryland Emigration and Immigration

United States Emigration and Immigration &gt; Maryland &gt; Maryland Emigration and Immigration

Colonial Period
Most colonial ship records contain little information about the passengers. Generally the list of passengers was a partial list and included names of the most important men. Women and children were often not listed. Since the capitans were not required to give their records to anyone, they kept the records themselves, destroyed the records or did not keep any records. Most of the records that survive have been published. Use the Passenger and Immigration Lists Index to find these records (see below).

Colonial Ships
Though they do not include names of passengers, records kept by the Colonial Office and stored at The National Archives (Kew, England), document ships' arrivals and departures from Maryland ports between 1689 and 1754. FamilySearch microfilmed these records. They are useful for learning about the history of ships entering the colony:


 * Shippings Lists for Maryland, 1689-1754.

Ships mentioned in the Maryland Gazette between 1727 and 1761 have been identified in:


 * Green, Karen Mauer. The Maryland Gazette, 1727-1761: Genealogical and Historical Abstracts. Galveston, Texas: Frontier, 1989..

Peter Wilson Coldham compiled a list of convict ships travelling between English and Maryland ports during the eighteenth century. See appendix to:


 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. British Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1788. CD-ROM. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004..

Names of ships can also be gleaned from colonial county court order books and English State Papers Colonial, American and West Indies.

1783 to 1948
Starting in 1820, the US federal government required capitans to turn in passenger lists. The early lists usually named every passenger, but little else.

Later lists might give:


 * - Name
 * - Age
 * - Marital status
 * - Occupation
 * - Country of origin
 * - Last permanent residence (country and town)
 * - Name and address of relative in country from whence alien came
 * - Destination (state and town)
 * - Name and address of a sponsor (usually a relative)
 * - Place of birth (country and town)
 * - Additional information

1949-1957
After 1957, few passenger lists were submitted to the government. Alien records and naturalization records are more useful than the passenger lists and are easier to obtain.

Before Using this Record, Know This
Before using passenger lists, it is very helpful to know the following about the passenger:


 * •Name as used in the U.S. and in the "Old Country"
 * •Variations for spelling of the passenger's name
 * •Nicknames
 * •Approximate age when arrived in the U.S.
 * •Approximate year when arrived in the U.S.
 * •Relatives of the passenger
 * •People the passenger might have come with.

Useful Records
- For immigration to Maryland, 1633-1680, see the sources at http://www.germanroots.com/1820.html#maryland

- For records of early immigrants to what is now the United States. see Early U.S. Immigrant Records.

The "Emigration and Immigration" page for the United States on the FamilySearch Research Wiki lists several important sources for finding information about immigrants. These nationwide sources include many references to people who settled in Maryland. Tracing Immigrant Origins introduces the principles, search strategies, and additional record types you can use to identify an immigrant ancestor's hometown.

Ports for Immigrants to Maryland
The major port of entry into Maryland was Baltimore. Most Baltimore passenger lists are on microfilm at the National Archives, the Maryland Historical Society, the Baltimore City Archives, and the Family History Library.

Baltimore and Annapolis were the two major ports of arrival for convicts transported to the American colonies from England.

Some immigrants arrived at Annapolis, Havre de Grace, Nottingham, and St. Mary's. The only known customs passenger lists for other Maryland ports are:


 * • Annapolis, 1849 (Family History Library film 830231)
 * • Havre de Grace, 1820 (Family History Library film 830234).

Immigrants to Maryland, especially western Maryland, may have arrived in Philadelphia (see Pennsylvania Emigration and Immigration.

Baltimore Arrivals, 1820 to 1891
The following records can help you identify an ancestor who arrived in Baltimore City, Maryland between 1820 and 1891:


 * • Passenger lists of vessels arriving at Baltimore, 1820-1948; Quarterly abstracts of passenger lists of vessels arriving at Baltimore, 1820-1869. Customs passenger lists beginning in January 1820. Most early customs passenger lists were reportedly destroyed by a fire.


 * - Ancestry has these records indexed and calls the collection Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948.


 * - The Family History Library has the following records in one collection of 165 films (FHL US/CAN Films beginning at ):


 * - Surviving U.S. Customs passenger lists from 1 January 1840 to 28 December 1891


 * - Baltimore City lists for 4 September 1833 to 13 June 1866 (with some gaps). During these years, ship masters were required to submit copies of their passenger lists to the mayor of Baltimore. These city lists partially replace the missing original lists.


 * - Quarterly Abstracts for 1820-1869 with several gaps (see below).


 * - Cargo manifests from 2 September 1820 to 30 March 1821 and 19 August 1832.


 * • Indexes to customs passenger lists, 1820 to 1897


 * - A soundex card index to the U.S. Customs passenger lists indexes the federal lists for 1820 to 1897 (FHL films ).


 * - A separate soundex card index includes the individuals appearing in the city lists from 1833 to 1866 (FHL films ). Both indexes have the same format and give all information found on the original lists except the name of the ship master and the port of embarkation.


 * • Quarterly abstracts of Baltimore City passenger lists. (FHL films ) Beginning in 1820, U.S. Customs collectors were required to send quarterly copies of the customs lists to the U.S. Secretary of State who published transcripts for Congress.


 * Use the abstracts when the original list is missing. These quarterly abstracts or copies give the quarter-year of an individual's arrival and sometimes the port of embarkation. Passengers' given names are usually shortened to the initial letter, but otherwise the information is the same as that found in the original lists. The abstracts also have many gaps, and some years are missing. The Family History Library has the abstracts for the following years :


 * • January 1820 to December 1845
 * • July 1848 to September 1850
 * • March 1857 to June 1869


 * • Indexes to the quarterly abstracts


 * - 1820-1834. Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Baltimore, 1820-1834: From Customs Passenger Lists, ed. by Bentley, Elizabeth P., and Michael H. Tepper. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982. (FHL Book ) This also indexes the few city lists, cargo manifests, and state department transcripts for this period.


 * - 1820-1874. United States. Bureau of Customs. A Supplemental Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Atlantic and Gulf Coast Ports (Excluding New York) 1820-1874. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1960. (FHL Films ) This indexes the Baltimore City abstracts through June 1869 and the existing Annapolis and Havre de Grace lists (see the paragraph labelled "Other Ports").

FHL and NARA Microfilm Catalog Numbers 1820-1891
FHL and NARA Microfilm Catalog Numbers for Baltimore Passenger Lists 1820-1891 is arranged chronologically, showing the FHL film numbers and corresponding NARA film numbers.

Baltimore Arrivals, 1892-1952
The National Archives has the immigration passenger lists and indexes of Baltimore City since 1892. The Family History Library has microfilm copies of:


 * • Lists for 1892 to 1948. (starting with FHL film )


 * - Ancestry has these records indexed and calls the collection Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948.


 * • Soundex card index for 1897 to 1952. (On 43 Family History Library films beginning with .)


 * • The National Archives also has four volumes of lists of passengers who died on board ship from 1867 to 1914.

Baltimore was served by the North German Lloyd shipping line from Bremen. If you know the name of the steamship that your ancestor arrived on, you can obtain the date of arrival for the years 1904 to 1926 from:


 * • Morton Allan Directory of European Passenger Steamship Arrivals. 1931. Reprint, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980. (Family History Library book ; 1931 edition on fiche .)

Indexes of German Immigrants.
Many of the customs lists and indexes include the birthplace or city of last permanent residence of German immigrants. This is because most Germans who came to Baltimore left from the port of Bremen, and the lists of ships arriving from Bremen often give this information.

There is an ongoing project to index an estimated 700,000 Germans who arrived at various U.S. ports including Baltimore City.


 * • Glazier, Ira A., and P. William Filby, eds. Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, 1850-1897.. 67 Volumes. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1988-. (Family History Library book .)
 * • Glazier, Ira A., ed. Germans to America - series II: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports in the 1840s. 7 vols. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2002 Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004. (Family History Library book .)

The People
British Isles

White settlers in colonial Maryland were primarily from the British Isles. In 1660 many English immigrants began settling the Eastern Shore (east of Chesapeake Bay) in what is now Wicomico County. Nearly all British immigrants to colonial Maryland came either as servants or convicts. Maryland received more indentured servants than any other colony.

The earlier colonists settled along Maryland's rivers and bays, as these were the primary routes of transportation. By about 1740, English, Scottish, and Scotch-Irish immigrants began moving into the Appalachian section of western Maryland.

Sometimes records in the English Court of Chancery help Americans learn about their British origins, for an example, see:


 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. "William Roberts of Maryland: Sidelights from the British Public Records Office," National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Sep. 1997):219-221.

From 1611 to 1870, more than 50,000 British and Irish 'criminals' (consisting mostly of those whom rose up in rebellion due to the government land seizures and other harsh measures) were sentenced to deportation to penal colonies over the centuries. Beginning with Irishmen who rebelled against Cromwell's army in 1649, political prisoners were often deported and sent to Virginia and Maryland, until 1775.

 German 

The largest group of non-British persons in the colonial period were Rhineland Germans who were encouraged by Maryland officials to settle in the rich farm lands of western Maryland in the 1730s and 1740s. Many of these Germans came through Philadelphia. A few Dutch, Swedish, Huguenot, and Acadian refugee families also came to the colony.

Slaves

Slave labor was introduced in the early decades of the seventeenth century when slaves from Barbados were imported to labor in the tobacco fields of southern Maryland. Vast numbers of Blacks were later shipped directly from Africa to the Chesapeake. Some of these Blacks obtained their freedom. By 1800, Maryland had the largest free Black population in the United States.

 Migrations from Maryland 

Migrations from Maryland began in the early years of the colony. Travelers generally followed the Cumberland Trail (Braddock Road) that led west to Pittsburgh and from there to the Ohio River. Many people also used the Great Trading Path, also called the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, that led southwest along the Allegheny Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. Some Marylanders from Prince George's County went to the Carolinas. A group of Catholics from St. Mary's County settled in Nelson County, Kentucky. By the 1820s some wealthy young Marylanders were moving slaves from their home farms to open plantations in Mississippi and surrounding areas.

Southerners fleeing the devastation of the Civil War and new immigrants from overseas helped to offset population losses. During the heavy period of immigration from 1830 through 1860, approximately half the immigrants were Germans, and a third were Irish. These immigrants tended to remain in the cities, especially Baltimore City, Maryland.

1870s and 1880s

In the 1870s and 1880s virtually all immigrants were of German origin. In the post-1880 wave of immigration, large numbers of Germans continued to come to Maryland. They were joined by Poles, Bohemians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Jews (from Germany, Poland, and Russia), Czechs, Italians, and Irish.

 Finding Histories of Ethnic Groups 

Histories of ethnic groups are listed in the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under MARYLAND - MINORITIES. An example is:

• Cunz, Dieter. The Maryland Germans: A History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1948. (Family History Library book 975.2 F2c; fiche 6048035.)

Westward Migrants
Free native-born Maryland, alive in 1850, who had left the state, resettled as follows:


 * ~65,000 in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri
 * ~45,000 in Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Virginia and Delaware