Maryland Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

 * 1500s-1900s All U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s - Maryland, USA at Ancestry; index only ($); Also at MyHeritage; index only ($)
 * 1820-1869 United States, Passenger and Crew Lists - Passenger Lists Of Vessels Arriving At Baltimore, Maryland, 1820-1869 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * 1820-1891 United States, Passenger and Crew Lists - Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists 1820-1891 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * 1820-1897 Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists Index, 1820-1897 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images; Also at MyHeritage; index & images ($)
 * 1820-1948 Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * 1820-1957 United States, Passenger and Crew Lists - Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * 1891-1943 Baltimore, Maryland Passenger Lists, 1891-1943 at MyHeritge; index & images ($)
 * 1895-1956 United States, Border Crossings from Canada, 1895-1956 to Maryland at MyHeritge; index & images ($)
 * 1897-1952 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images ($)
 * 1920-1939 Germany, Bremen Emigration Lists, 1920-1939 to Maryland at MyHeritge; index only ($)
 * 1954-1957 Maryland, Baltimore, Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels and Airplanes, 1954-1957 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * New Early Settlers of Maryland free online database.
 * Italians Immigrating to the United States - Maryland at MyHeritage; index only ($)
 * Overseas Origins of Immigrant Servants

Colonial Period

 * The Early Settlers of Maryland: An Index to Names of Immigrants Compiled from Records of Land Patents, 1633 - 1680, in the Hall of Records, Annapolis, Maryland. Skordas, Gust. 1968; reprint, Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1974.
 * British Roots of Maryland Families. 2 vols. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999-2002..
 * Colonial Families of Maryland: Bound and Determined to Succeed. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007..
 * Missing Relatives and Lost Friends. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield, 2008..
 * Whitehaven to Washington. Lawrence-Dow, Elizabeth and Daniel Hay. Copeland, England, 1974..

British Immigrants
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.

From 1611 to 1776, more than 50,000 English and Irish felons were sentenced to deportation to American colonies over the centuries. These include Irishmen who rebelled against Cromwell's army in 1649. The 1755 Census of Maryland reveals the distribution of transported convicts across the colony.

German Immigrants
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.

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.


 * Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, 1850-1897.. 67 Volumes. (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1988-.) Glazier, Ira A., and P. William Filby, eds.
 * Germans to America - series II: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports in the 1840s. Glazier, Ira A., ed. 7 vols. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2002 Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004.)
 * The Maryland Germans: A History. Cunz, Dieter. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948.)

Before Using Emigration/Immigration Records, 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.

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
 * Havre de Grace, 1820


 * 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


 * 1820 - 1948 at FamilySearch— index and images


 * Browsable images online in FamilySearch Historical Records.


 * 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


 * 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.


 * A separate soundex card index includes the individuals appearing in the city lists from 1833 to 1866 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.


 * One Step Webpages by Stephen Morse Links to free and $ online passenger lists

Quarterly abstracts of Baltimore City passenger lists


 * 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.) 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.) 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. FamilySearch has the following:


 * Browsable images online in FamilySearch Historical Records.


 * Lists for 1892 to 1948.


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


 * Soundex card index for 1897 to 1952.


 * • 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.) FHL fiche 6046854; book 973 U3m 1980} 1931 edition

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 the Irish.

Finding Histories of Ethnic Groups

Histories of ethnic groups are listed in the Locality Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under MARYLAND - MINORITIES.

Westward Migrants
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.

Free native-born Marylanders, 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

Henry C. Peden has published books on Marylanders who migrated to other parts of the country:


 * Marylanders to Carolina: Migration of Marylanders to North and South Carolina Prior to 1800. Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1994..
 * Marylanders to Kentucky, 1775-1825. Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1991..
 * More Marylanders to Kentucky 1778-1828. Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1997..
 * Marylanders to Ohio and Indiana: Migrations Prior to 1835. Lewes, De.: Colonial Roots, 2006..
 * More Marylanders to Ohio and Indiana: Migrations Prior to 1835. Lewes, De.: Colonial Roots, 2006..
 * Marylanders to Tennessee, 1775-1835. Lewes, De.: Colonial Roots, 2004..

Articles have been published about Marylanders in Delaware, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, see: Genealogical Sources in Periodicals at The Maryland State Archives.