Estonia Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 1850-1934 Auswandererlisten, 1850-1934 (Hamburg passenger lists) at FamilySearch, images.
 * 1850-1934 Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 at Ancestry ($) index and images.
 * 1855-1924 Hamburg Passenger Lists, Handwritten Indexes, 1855-1934 at Ancestry ($) images.
 * Hamburg, Germany Emigrants at Findmypast ($) index.
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast; index & images ($)
 * 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Estonia
 * 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
 * United States Immigration Online Genealogy Records
 * Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild Choose a volume and then choose Estonia under "Listed by Port of Departure" or "Listed by Port of Arrival".

Occupation Records
The first Soviet occupation was from 1940–1941, followed by the German occupation of 1941–1944, and the second Soviet occupation 1944–1991.
 * Museum of Occupations, Soviet Occupation Political Arrests, Memento 2005. Index.
 * 1945-1953 1945-1953, Name List of Persons Deported from Estonia
 * 1940-1953 Museum of Occupations, Book 6, Deportation from Estonia to Russia, Deportation in June 1941 & Deportation in 1940–1953 Index.
 * 1949 Museum of Occupations, Memento 1999, Book 5, Deportation from Estonia to Russia, Deportation in March 1949, Volume 2. Index.
 * 1940-1990 Museum of Occupations, Memento 1996, Political Arrests in Estonia, 1940-1990, Deported, Arrested, Murdered. Index.
 * 1940-1988 Museum of Occupations, Memento 1998, Political Arrests in Estonia, Additional Lists, 1940-1988. Index.

Finding the Town of Origin
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Estonia, see Estonia Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies. "Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Emigration
When Estonia was invaded by the Soviet Army in 1944, large numbers of Estonians fled their homeland on ships or smaller boats over the Baltic Sea. Many refugees who survived the risky sea voyage to Sweden and/or Germany later moved from there to Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and/or Australia.

Also, with the June deportation of 1941 and March deportation of 1949, the Soviet Union forcibly transferred tens of thousands of Estonians to Siberia. Some of these refugees and their descendants returned to Estonia after the nation regained its independence in 1991. The Russian Empire displaced a fairly high number of Estonians into exile, maybe the number of descendants (the 3.5 million doesn't include Estonian sub-groups: the Chudes, Livonians, Setos and Voros in neighboring lands of Russia, Latvia and Lithuania. There is no way to know the corrected number of Estonians, unless to count 100,000 dual nationals in the former USSR or the number of expatriates in the EU countries, especially Finland.

Records In the Destination Nations
See links to Wiki articles about immigration records for major destination countries below. Additional Wiki articles for other destinations can be found in the Category:Emigration and Immigration Records.

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