Albania Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 1850-1934 Auswandererlisten, 1850-1934 (Hamburg passenger lists) at FamilySearch, images.
 * 1850-1934 Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 at Ancestry ($) index and images.
 * 1855-1924 Hamburg Passenger Lists, Handwritten Indexes, 1855-1934 at Ancestry ($) images.
 * Hamburg, Germany Emigrants at Findmypast ($) index.
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast; index & images ($)
 * 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Albania
 * 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

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

Albania 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

 * Between the 18th and 19th centuries, cultural developments, widely attributed to Albanians having gathered both spiritual and intellectual strength, conclusively led to the Albanian Renaissance.
 * After the defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars, the modern nation state of Albania declared independence in 1912.
 * The People's Socialist Republic of Albania was formed after World War II. The Revolutions of 1991 concluded the fall of communism in Albania and eventually the establishment of the current Republic of Albania.

Emigration From Albania

 * Albanian diaspora: 2.8 million live in Albania, with an estimated 8.5 million world total (the largest populations being in Italy, Greece, Turkey, the United States, Canada and Australia).
 * The largest concentration of Albanians outside the country is in neighboring Kosovo.
 * Other Albanian enclaves are in southern Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and coastal Croatia.
 * Another population of ethnic Albanians, known as the Arbereshe, has lived in southern Italy, especially in regions of Abruzzo, Calabria, Campania, Naples, Apulia and Sicily for over eight centuries.
 * In the 19th and 20th centuries, repeated large waves of Albanian emigration took place as Albanians moved to northern and Western Europe (i.e. France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.), the former Soviet Union, the U.S., and with smaller numbers in Mexico and South America), Australia and across Asia (the former Ottoman Empire in the Middle East).