Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 1813-1834 Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834 at Ancestry, ($), index and images.
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Saint Vincent
 * United States Immigration Online Genealogy Records

British Overseas Subjects

 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, index and images, ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, index and images, ($)

Finding the Town of Origin in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, see Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Emigration and Immigration
"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.

Immigration into Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

 * The population as estimated in 2018 was 110,211. The ethnic composition was 66% African descent, 19% of mixed descent, 6% East Indian, 4% Europeans (mainly Portuguese), 2% Island Carib and 3% others.
 * Most Vincentians are the descendants of African people brought to the island to work on plantations.
 * There are other ethnic groups such as Portuguese (from Madeira) and East Indians, both brought in to work on the plantations after the abolishing of slavery by the British living on the island.
 * There is also a growing Chinese population.
 * It was the French who were first able to colonize the island. The French brought with them enslaved African prisoners of war to work the plantations of sugar, coffee, indigo, tobacco, cotton and cocoa.
 * Control of the country passed back and forth between France and the British. The British finally regained control under the Treaty of Versailles (1783).
 * The British abolished slavery in Saint Vincent (as well as in all other British West Indies colonies) in 1834. After its end, labour shortages on the plantations resulted, and were initially addressed by the immigration of indentured servants; in the late 1840s, many Portuguese immigrants arrived from Madeira, and between 1861 and 1888 shiploads of Indian labourers arrived.

Emigration From Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

 * Black Caribs are originally from the island of Saint Vincent, formed in the 18th century by the mixture between Carib Amerindians and black slaves. A part of their community (now known as Garifuna) was expelled from St. Vincent in 1797 and exported to the island of Roatán, Honduras, from where they migrated to the Caribbean coast of the mainland of Central America and spread as far as Belize and Nicaragua.
 * Knomad statistics:  Stock of emigrants:60,600. Top destination countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, the Virgin Islands (U.S.), Grenada, St. Lucia, Guyana.