Massachusetts Emigration and Immigration

United States Massachusetts Emigration and Immigration

For information about immigrants, see:

The United States Research. The "Emigration and Immigration" section lists national sources that include many references to Massachusetts settlers.

Tracing Immigrant Origins introduces the principles, search strategies, and additional record types you can use to identify an immigrant ancestor's original hometown.

People
1600s. Early settlers of Massachusetts generally came from England and Scotland and the other New England states. Plymouth Colony was first settled in 1620. From 1630 to 1642, fifteen to twenty thousand people settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Up to 1880. Significant immigration from other European countries began in the 1840s, when many people came to work in the textile mills. Prior to 1880 about 95 percent of the overseas immigrants to Massachusetts came from Britain, Ireland, and northern Europe. The Irish were the largest immigrant group from the late 1840s through the rest of the 19th century. In the 1870s large numbers of Canadians, especially French Canadians, began to move overland into the state.

After 1880. A significant change in immigration patterns occurred after 1880. A wave of Italian and Portuguese immigration began in the late 1880s and reached its high point just prior to World War I. Russians, Russian Jews, and people from Poland and other Slavic countries came in large numbers in the early 20th century. In 1907, for example, 80 percent of the immigrants to Massachusetts were from southern and eastern Europe.

An especially helpful source on immigration and ethnic groups in Massachusetts is:

Thayer, Mrs. Nathaniel. The Immigrants (1830-1929) in Volume 4 of Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, pp. 142–71. Edited by Albert B. Hart. New York, NY: The States History Company, 1930.

Records
Boston Passenger Lists. Boston is the major port of entry to New England. The Family History Library and the National Archives have passenger lists for Boston from 1820 to March 1874 and from 1883 to 1943. See the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under MASSACHUSETTS, SUFFOLK, BOSTON - EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION.


 * is available online from FamilySearch.
 * — index and images

Indexes to Boston Passenger Lists. These indexes are also available:

Index for 1820-1874 :

United States, Bureau of Customs. A Supplemental Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Atlantic &amp; Gulf Coast Ports (excluding New York) 1820–1874. Washington, DC: National Archives Records Services, 1960. This is listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under UNITED STATES - EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION - INDEXES.

Index for 1848-1891 :

Bureau of Customs. Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, 1820–1891: with index 1848–1891. Washington, DC: National Archives Record Service, 1959–1960. This is listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under MASSACHUSETTS, SUFFOLK, BOSTON - EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION.

The 1848–1891 index (above) to the state passenger lists can also be used to access the National Archives records.

Boston passenger lists for 1848–1891 are also at the Massachusetts State Archives. These include records for the nine years missing from the National Archives records.

Passenger lists for 1874–1883 are not at the Family History Library.

Indexes for 1902–1940 :

United States, Immigration and Naturalization Service:


 * Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels arriving at Boston, Jan. 1, 1902–Dec. 31, 1920
 * Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, Aug. 1, 1891–1935
 * Book Indexes to Boston Passenger Lists, 1899–1940

Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Service, 1944–1945, 1956.

Other Passenger Lists. Also consult passenger lists of other New England ports and for ports in Canada. For Canadian border entries from 1895 to 1924, see:

United States, Immigration and Naturalization Services. St. Albans District Manifest Records of Aliens Arriving from Foreign Contiguous Territory. Washington, DC: National Archives Records Service, 1986. (On 400 films, beginning with There are soundex indexes for 1895–1924 and 1924–1952. These records are listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under UNITED STATES - EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION.

Ships
Lloyd's Register of Shipping identifies ships leaving England, their masters, ports of departure, and destinations. They survive as early as 1764 and are being put online at Lloyd's Register of Ships Online - free.

Many ships that sailed from Bristol, England to Boston are described in: Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America 1698-1807 (4 vols.). All four volumes are available for free online at the Bristol Record Society website.

British Naval Office Shipping Lists, 1678-1825, have been digitized by British Online Archives (site requires subscription). Names of passengers are not included.

Background
Col. Banks published an article describing migration patterns from England to New England (as they were known in 1930):


 * Banks, Charles Edward. "The Topographical Sources of English Emigration to the New England Colonies 1620-1650," The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan. 1930):3-6. Digital version at New York Family History ($);.

Web Sites
Emigration and Immigration Records and Resources Ancestry has a very large immigration database but is a subscription website. Other helpful sites include:


 * Ellis Island;(For US arrivals 1892-1924)
 * Castle Garden;(For US arrivals 1830-1892)
 * Irish Famine Immigrants
 * The Rest Haven Cemetery at Deer Island (Boston Harbor) contains the graves of several hundred Irish immigrants who died at the quarantine station after fleeing the Irish Famine in the late 1840s and trying to reach America.
 * Immigrant Ships
 * Immigrant Ancestors Project

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at: Massachusetts, Boston Passenger Lists (FamilySearch Historical Records)