Portugal Emigration and Immigration

Passenger Lists

 * 1805-1953 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only. Covers the consulate records of Lisbon, Oporto, and Vila Real de San António.
 * 1823-1935 Auswandern Preußischer (Prussians) Untertanen nach Griechenland (Greece) und Portugal, 1823-1835 Civil records relating to the migration of the inhabitants of Prussia to Greece and Portugal.
 * 1843-1900 Portuguese Passenger Manifests, Hawaii Index to Portuguese Passenger Manifests in Hawaii. The search bar for the index is placed at the top-right of the page.
 * 1878-1913 Ship passenger lists, 1878-1913, /hawaii Registration of Portuguese citizens arriving in Hawaii. Lists include some personal information about each of the persons registered.
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Portugal
 * 1900-1902 Afrikaner refugee records from Portugal, 1900-1902 Information on Afrikaner refugees who emigrated from Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, to Portugal during the Boer War (1899-1902). Includes deaths (with name, age and date of death) and names, nationalities, and dates of disappearance of persons who left Alcobaça, Portugal.
 * 1904-1914 Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Portugal
 * 1929-1939 Certificados de inscricão consular, 1929-1939, Hawaii Register of Portuguese citizens in Hawaii.
 * 1892-1956 Ellis Island Passenger Lists, 1892-1956
 * Immigrant Ancestors Project Index of passport registers and ship logs created shortly before individuals emigrated to another country.
 * Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild Choose a volume and then choose Portugal under "Listed by Port of Departure" or "Listed by Port of Arrival".


 * Portuguese Passenger Ship Master List in U.S. Ports Index taken from major U.S. port records.

Passports

 * 1800-1946 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
 * 1834-1966 Portugal, Porto, Passport Registers, 1834-1966 at Arquivo Distrital de Porto, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1834-1967 Portugal, Vila Real, Passport Registers, 1834-1967 at Arquivo Distrital de Vila Real, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1835-1928 Portugal, Viana do Castelo, Passport Registers, 1835-1928 at Arquivo Distrital de Viana do Castelo, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1835-1938 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
 * 1839-1944 Portugal, Lisboa, Passport Registers, 1839-1944 at Arquivo Distrital de Lisboa, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1844-1967 Portugal, Bragança, Passport Registers, 1844-1967 at Arquivo Distrital de Bragança, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1861-1901 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
 * 1868-1965 Portugal, Braga, Passport Registers, 1868-1965 at Arquivo Distrital de Braga, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1872-1910 Portugal, Madeira Passports 1872-1910 at the Madeira Regional Archive.
 * 1872-1910 Portugal, Madeira Passports 1872-1910 at Ancestry; index only ($)
 * 1872-1925 Madeira, Portugal, Passport Index, 1872-1925 at Ancestry; index only ($)
 * 1879-1883 Hawaii Passport Index 1879-1883 Passport index for Hawaii, organized by town/village of origin. Includes immigrants from Portugal, the Azores, and Brazil.
 * 1882-1965 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * 1882-1965 Portugal, Aveiro, Passport Registers, 1882-1965 at Arquivo Distrital de Aveiro, accessed through Tombo.pt.
 * 1924-1939 Passaporte de viajante, Honolulu, 1924-1939 Register of traveler's passports issued by the Portuguese Consulate in Honolulu.
 * Immigrant Ancestors Project Index of emigration documents created shortly before individuals emigrated to another country.
 * Portugal, Azores Passports Passports issued from the Azores. To view the records, select the archive (núcleo) holding the records for the island in question.
 * Angra do Heroismo contains records for Terceira, Sao Jorge &amp; Graciosa.
 * Horta contains records for Pico Faial, Flores &amp; Corvo.
 * Ponta Delgada contains records for Sao Miguel &amp; Santa Maria.

Immigration/Emigration (Imigração/Emigração)
Ship passenger lists, passport registers, emigration proceedings, citizenship papers, registration of foreigners, and similar migration documents can prove a vital link in tracing an individual back to Portugal. Such records may contain the individual's full name, age, civil status, birthplace, former residence, destination, and sometimes race or nationality. They are contained in the National and District Archives, and some have been digitized.

Emigration from Portugal

 * Historically, Portugal has one of the highest emigration rates in the world. The trend reaches back to the 15th century, when Portugal began overseas exploration and colonization. Many Portuguese individuals moved to colonies in Africa, South America, and Pacific archipelagos. In the twentieth century, a large number also settled across the United States, drawn by the shipping trade in New England, California, and Hawaii. *The vast majority of Brazilians have Portuguese ancestry.
 * It was one of the last western colonial European powers to give up its overseas territories (among them Angola and Mozambique in 1975), turning over the administration of Macau to the People's Republic of China at the end of 1999.

Immigration to Portugal

 * An estimated 800,000 Portuguese returned to Portugal as the country's African possessions gained independence in 1975.
 * Since the 1990s, along with a boom in construction, several new waves of Ukrainian, Brazilian, Lusophone Africans and other Africans have settled in the country. Romanians, Moldovans, Kosovo Albanians, Russians and Chinese have also migrated to the country. Portugal's Romani (gypsy) population is estimated to be at about 40,000.
 * Numbers of Venezuelan, Pakistani and Indian migrants are also significant. It is estimated that over 30,000 seasonal, often illegal immigrants work in agriculture, mainly in the south where they are often exploited by organized seasonal-worker's networks. The workers sometimes get paid less than half the minimum pay established by law. These migrants who often arrive without due documentation or work-contracts, make up over 90% of agricultural workers in the south of Portugal. Most are Indo-Asians, from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand. In the interior of the Alentejo there are many African workers. Significant numbers also come from Eastern Europe, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania and Brazil.
 * In addition, a number of EU citizens, mostly from the United Kingdom or other northern European countries, have become permanent residents in the country (with the British community being mostly composed of retired pensioners who live in the Algarve and Madeira).

Portuguese Americans

 * According to the United States Census from 2000, there were 1,176,615 Portuguese-Americans, the majority being of Azorean descent.
 * Portuguese people have had a very long history in the United States, since 1634.
 * During the Colonial period, there was a small Portuguese immigration to the present-day U.S., especially to the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
 * By the early 19th century, New Bedford had become the center of whaling in America. Whalers would frequently stop in the Azores to recruit crew members for help.At the end of their voyage, they docked in New England, where crew members often settled as immigrants.
 * In the late 19th century, many Portuguese, mainly Azoreans and Madeirans, emigrated to the eastern U.S., establishing communities in New England coastal cities, primarily but not limited to Providence, Bristol, Warwick and Pawtucket in Rhode Island, and Taunton, Brockton, Fall River and New Bedford in Southeastern Massachusetts. Another part of Massachusetts that attracted many Portuguese immigrants was Northern Massachusetts, most notably Lowell and Lawrence. In addition, Many Portuguese immigrants also went to nearby Southern New Hampshire.
 * A small number of Portuguese immigrants settled in the city of Boston. These Portuguese immigrants mainly settled in East Boston and North End. In addition, Many Portuguese immigrants also went to Cambridge and Somerville.
 * A Portuguese community existed in the vicinity of the Carpenter Street Underpass in Springfield, Illinois, one of the earliest and largest Portuguese settlements in the Midwestern United States.
 * On the West Coast in California there are Portuguese communities in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Cruz, the Central Valley, the dairy producing areas of the Los Angeles Basin, and San Diego, in connection to Portuguese fishermen and settlers emigrating to California from the Azores.
 * There are also connections with Portuguese communities in the Pacific Northwest in Astoria, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada as well.
 * After World War II, there was another wave of Portuguese immigration to the country, mainly in the northeastern United States (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maryland), and also in California. Many were fleeing the right-wing dictatorship of Antonio Salazar.
 * Many Portuguese Americans may include descendants of '''Portuguese settlers born in Africa (like Angola, Cape Verde, and Mozambique) and Asia (mostly Macanese people), as well Oceania (Timor-Leste).
 * In 1957–58, the Capelinhos volcano erupted on the Azorean island of Faial, causing massive destruction from lava and smoke. The U.S. responded with the Azorean Refugee Act, making 1,500 visas available to the victims of the eruption.

Portuguese Hawaiians

 * In 1878, Portuguese migration to Hawaii began with laborers from Madeira and the Azores to work in the sugarcane plantations. (Sugarcane had been the mainstay of the economy in Madeira and the Azores for over 400 years, and most of the population was involved in one way or another in the sugarcane industry.) By the end of 1911, nearly 16,000 Portuguese immigrants had arrived.
 * Labor contracts paid for the migration of entire families. This was enticing for families looking to migrate without the means or the desire to migrate in stages.
 * Prior to independence in 1975, many Cape Verdeans emigrated to Hawaii from drought-stricken Portuguese Cape Verde, formerly an overseas province of Portugal. Because these people arrived using their Portuguese passports, they were registered as Portuguese immigrants.
 * A large amount of mingling took place between Chinese and Portuguese in Hawaii. There were very few marriages between European and Chinese people with the majority being between Portuguese and Chinese people.

Personal Names

 * As with other immigrants that arrived in America, several Portuguese surnames have been changed to align with more American sounding names, for example Rodrigues to Rogers, Oliveira to Oliver, Martins to Martin, Pereira to Perry, Moraes or Morais to Morris, Magalhães to McLean, Souto to Sutton, Moura to Moore, Serrão to Serran, Silva to Silver or Sylvia, Rocha to Rock (or Stone), Madeira or Madeiros to Wood, Pontes to Bridges, Fernandes to Frederick, Costa to Charlie, Emo or Emos to Emma and Santos to Stan.

Portuguese Luxembourgers

 * Although estimates of the total Portuguese Luxembourg population vary, in 2013 there were 82,363 people in Luxembourg with Portuguese nationality. They constitute 16.1% of the population of Luxembourg, making them the largest group of foreigner citizens living in the country. Prior to 1975, Cape Verdean immigrants were registered as Portuguese immigrants from the overseas province of Portuguese Cape Verde.
 * From 1875 onwards, Luxembourg's economy relied upon the immigration of cheap labour of mostly Italians to work in the country's steel mills and to counter the natural demographic decline of the native Luxembourgish population. The mid-1960s saw the arrival of the first Portuguese guest workers (including Cape Verdeans, who also had Portuguese citizenship). At the time, Portugal was ruled as a nationalist authoritarian conservative regime, and an economic downturn coincided with the so-called 'Academic Crisis' and deteriorating conditions in Portugal's colonies to put further pressure on many young Portuguese people to emigrate.
 * The two countries signed a treaty in Lisbon in 1970 to allow family unification.
 * When Portugal entered the European Economic Community in 1986, Portuguese citizens were to be guaranteed the same rights to the labor market as Luxembourgish citizens.

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