Slovenia Emigration and Immigration

Emigration Applications and Lists
Two types of emigration records in Slovenia are applications of emigrants and lists of those departing. Nineteenth century emigrants had to prove fulfillment of obligations concerning land or property and young men had to prove they were not subject to military service. These records began in 1857 and continue to the present. Applications normally record names and dates of birth for all emigrants; other information may vary. These records are stored at the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia.

Emigration records provide vital information, as well as clues to previous residence and destination.

Passenger Lists in the Port of Trieste
Trieste, the main Austrian port, assumed the function of the port of emigration in 1904. The number of people who emigrated via the Port of Trieste was for a long time recorded only in the form of summary reports according to gender as well as province or country of origin.

Only in 1912 did the Trieste port authorities begin compiling detailed passenger records that included name and surname, age, marital status, profession, last place of residence, citizenship, port of destination as well as the ship and the date of departure for each steerage passenger. One copy of these records for the period 1912-1914 can be found in the Austrian State Archive in Vienna in the records of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Trade, one copy for 1914 is also kept by the State Archive in Trieste in the records of the Maritime Government. The records include data on a total of nearly 87000 emigrants who emigrated during those years via Trieste to the USA, South America and Canada with the Austrian national company Austro-Americana, the English Cunard Line and the Canadia Pacific Railway Company. Nearly half of all emigrants came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while the rest of them were predominently from Russia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Romania.

For more information see article written by Aleksej Kalc and published in Drevesa (FHL serial 949.73 D25d copy 2,L.8, s.3, Nov 2001).