Republic of the Congo Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

 * 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
 * 1888-1917 France National Overseas Archives, Congo
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for the Congo
 * 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 Republic of the Congo
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Democratic Republic of the Congo, see Republic of the Congo Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Republic of the Congo 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
The Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the mouth of the Congo in 1484.[17] Commercial relationships quickly grew between the inland Bantu kingdoms and European merchants who traded in various commodities, manufactured goods, and also people captured and enslaved in the hinterlands. After centuries as a central hub for transatlantic trade, direct European colonization of the Congo river delta began in the late 19th century, subsequently eroding the power of the Bantu societies in the region.[18]

French colonial era Main articles: French Congo and French Equatorial Africa

The court of N'Gangue M'voumbe Niambi, from the book Description of Africa (1668) The area north of the Congo River came under French sovereignty in 1880 as a result of Pierre de Brazza's treaty with King Makoko[19] of the Bateke.[17] After the death of Makoko, his widow Queen Ngalifourou upheld the terms of the treaty and became an important ally to the colonizers.[20] This Congo Colony became known first as French Congo, then as Middle Congo in 1903.

In 1908, France organized French Equatorial Africa (AEF), comprising the Middle Congo, Gabon, Chad, and Oubangui-Chari (the modern Central African Republic). The French designated Brazzaville as the federal capital. Economic development during the first 50 years of colonial rule in Congo centered on natural-resource extraction. The methods were often brutal: construction of the Congo-Ocean Railway following World War I has been estimated to have cost at least 14,000 lives.[17]

During the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, Brazzaville functioned as the symbolic capital of Free France between 1940 and 1943.[21] The Brazzaville Conference of 1944 heralded a period of major reform in French colonial policy. Congo benefited from the postwar expansion of colonial administrative and infrastructure spending as a result of its central geographic location within AEF and the federal capital at Brazzaville.[16] It also had a local legislature after the adoption of the 1946 constitution that established the Fourth Republic.

Following the revision of the French constitution that established the Fifth Republic in 1958, the AEF dissolved into its constituent parts, each of which became an autonomous colony within the French Community. During these reforms, Middle Congo became known as the Republic of the Congo in 1958[22] a

Emigration

 * The vast majority of Americans of African ancestry in the United States are descendants of the 400,000 black slaves forcibly brought to the New World prior to 1860. Most of these slaves came from a small section (approximately 300 miles long) of the Atlantic coast between the Congo and Gambia rivers in East Africa.

Records
Much of African culture is based on oral tradition, but records such as slave sales and slave advertisements may give a clue toward slave origins in Africa. Getting your slave ancestor back to Africa may just not be possible, but your best chances lie with scrutinizing every record you can find for clues and by being familiar with the slave trade in the area in which you are researching.