Serbia Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 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 New Zealand
 * 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

British Overseas Subjects

 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, index and images, ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages,, index and images, ($)


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

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

Serbia 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.

Historical Background

 * In the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution' established the nation-state as 'the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory.
 * Following casualties in World War I, and the subsequent unification of the former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina with Serbia, the country co-founded Yugoslavia with other South Slavic nations', which would exist in various political formations until the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
 * During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro', which was peacefully dissolved in 2006, restoring Serbia's independence as a sovereign state for the first time since 1918.

The Great Migrations

 * The Great Migrations of the Serbs, also known as the Great Exoduses of the Serbs, refers mainly to two large migrations of Serbs from various territories under the rule of Ottoman Empire to regions under the rule of Habsburg Monarchy in the 17th and the 18th centuries.
 * The First Great Migration occurred during the Habsburg-Ottoman War (1683-1699). As a result of the lost rebellion and suppression, Serbian Christians and their church leaders sided with the Austrians in 1689. Albanian Catholics were also part of the exodus. They settled mainly in the southern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary.
 * The Second Great Migration took place during the Habsburg-Ottoman War (1737-1739).During the war, large portion of the Christian population from the region of Raška and other Serbian lands migrated towards the north, following the retreat of Habsburg armies and the Serbian Militia. They settled mainly in Syrmia and neighboring regions, within the borders of the Habsburg Monarchy.
 * Serbs from these migrations settled in the southern parts of Hungary, but to smaller extent also in the town of Komárom and Croatia.

19th to 20th Centuries

 * In modern times, there were different waves of Serbian migration, characterized into:
 * Economic emigration (end of 19th–beginning of 20th century): Serbs (mainly from peripheral ethnic areas such as Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, and Lika) emigrated to the United States.
 * Political emigration (1941–47) of anti-Communist regime members: Members of royalist Chetniks and anti-communists fled the country mainly going overseas (United States and Australia) and, to a lesser degree, United Kingdom.
 * Economic emigration (1960s-1980s) of mostly laborers with low-level education: Several Western European countries signed bilateral agreements with Yugoslavia allowing the recruitment of industrial workers ("guest-workerss") to those countries. Main destinations were West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and to a lesser extent France and Sweden. Most of the emigrants headed for German-speaking countries.
 * Political emigration (1990s) refugees of the Yugoslav Wars: The international economic sanctions imposed on Serbia caused economic collapse with an estimated 300,000 people leaving Serbia during that period.


 * The main countries of destination were Germany, Austria, United States, Sweden, Canada and Australia.
 * The Ministry of Diaspora (MoD) estimated in 2008 that the Serbian diaspora numbered 3,908,000 to 4,170,000, the numbers including not only Serbian citizens but people who view Serbia as their nation-state regardless of the citizenship they hold. These could include second- and third-generation Serbian emigrants or descendants of emigrants from other former Yugoslav republics who never obtained Serbian citizenship but are ethnic Serbs. By continent or region, it was estimated that 2,705,000–2,765,000 lived in Europe (excluding former Yugoslavia), 1–1,2 million in North America, 130,000 in Australia, 26,000 in Africa, 20,000 in Central and South America, 8,000 in Asia, 5,000–7,000 in New Zealand, 5,000 in the Middle East.
 * KNOMAD Statistics: Emigrants:1,292,900. Top destination countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, the United States, Turkey, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia.

For Further Reading
There are additional sources listed in the FamilySearch Catalog: