American Samoa, Passenger Lists and Travel Documents - FamilySearch Historical Records

What is in the Collection?
This collection includes indexes and images of travel documents from American Samoa, covering the years 1918-1965. They were acquired from the San Francisco Federal Records Center in San Bruno, California.

American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of Samoa, west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and south of Tokelau. American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the U.S. and one of two U.S. territories south of the equator.

Collection Content
The records will include passenger lists, passports, travel permits, letters of identity, affidavits of birth, visas and visa requests, and naturalization petitions from American Samoa.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
Visas: documents proving legal permission given by the authority of a country for a person who is not a citizen of that country to enter and to remain there for a specified length of time.

Visas may include the following information:
 * Name of petitioner
 * Residence of petitioner
 * Date of birth
 * Month and year of visit
 * Intended length of stay in the country
 * Areas authorized to visit

Petitions for naturalization: formal applications submitted during the process of becoming a citizen of the country to which an individual has immigrated.

Petitions for naturalization may contain the following information:
 * Name of petitioner
 * Residence of petitioner
 * Date of birth
 * Month and year of immigration
 * Court where petition is filed

Passports: travel documents, usually issued by the government of a nation, that certify the identity and nationality of the holder for the purpose of international travel.

Passports may contain the following information:
 * Name of petitioner
 * Residence of petitioner
 * Date of birth
 * Nationality
 * Physical description of petitioner

Passenger Lists: documentation of ship passengers.

Passenger lists may contain the following information:
 * Name of petitioner
 * Residence of petitioner
 * Month and year of immigration
 * Name of ship
 * Date of departure and arrival
 * Ports of departure and arrival
 * Occupation
 * Names of family members
 * Purpose of travel

Other records my include:

Travel permits: documents allowing passengers to travel when they have not purchased a ticket in advance and the ticket office of the station they are traveling from is closed.

Affidavits: written, sworn statements of fact voluntarily made under an oath to a person authorized to do so by law.

How Do I Search the Collection?
Before searching the collection it is helpful to know the following:
 * The given and surname of your ancestor
 * When and where they wanted to travel
 * Their residence
 * Age
 * Other relatives by name who may be mentioned on their documents

View images in this collection by visiting the Browse Page: To search the collection you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒Select the "Browse images" on the search page ⇒Select the "Record type" category ⇒Select "Year or year range" category which takes you to the images

Search the collection by image and compare the information you find with what you already know about your ancestors to determine if the image relates to them. You may need to compare several images in order to make this determination.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s passenger list or travel document, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the birth date listed on the passenger list or travel document to find your ancestor in other records.
 * Use the residence listed on the passenger list or travel document to identify other relatives.
 * Search for others with the same surname on the passenger list to determine if other relatives traveled with them.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * When looking for a person who had a common name, look at all the entries for the name before deciding which is correct.
 * Continue to search the index and records to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives.
 * Don’t overlook the possibility of finding ancestors who were visiting relatives, traveling for business, or traveling for pleasure.

Citations for This Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection citation:

Image Citation: