California, Los Angeles and San Pedro, Passenger Lists - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States California Los Angeles County

What is in the Collection?
This collection contains passenger lists of vessels temporarily arriving at Los Angeles and San Pedro, California, March 1920-January 1949. After such, the vessels continued on to their final destinations either to a United States port or foreign port. The final destination of the vessel is indicated on the record. These records correspond with NARA publication A3385 and were filmed at the NARA facility in College Park, Maryland.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
Passenger Lists may contain the following information:


 * Full name
 * Age
 * Gender
 * Marital status
 * Occupation
 * Citizenship
 * Race
 * Last permanent residence
 * Birthplace
 * Final destination

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know:


 * The full name of your ancestor
 * The approximate date of immigration
 * The age of your ancestor

If you do not know this information, check the census records after 1900.

View images in this collection by visiting the Browse Page: To search the collection you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒ Select "Browse through images" on the initial collection page ⇒ Select the appropriate "NARA Roll Number" which takes you to the images.

Look at each image comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine if the image relates to them. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination. Keep in mind:


 * There may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * You may not be sure of your own ancestor’s name.
 * Your ancestor may have used different names or variations of their name throughout their life.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information given. Save a copy of the image or transcribe the information. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details. Add this new information to your records of each family. You should also look for leads to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?
Use passenger lists to:


 * Learn an immigrant’s place of origin
 * Confirm their date of arrival
 * Learn foreign and “Americanized” names
 * Find records in his or her country of origin such as emigrations, port records, or ship’s manifests.
 * If your ancestor had a common name, be sure to look at all the entries for a name before you decide which is correct.
 * Continue to search the passenger lists to identify siblings, parents, and other relatives in the same or other generations who may have immigrated at the same time.
 * If your ancestor has an uncommon surname, you may want to obtain the passenger list of every person who shares your ancestor’s surname if they lived in the same county or nearby. You may not know how or if they are related, but the information could lead you to more information about your own ancestors.
 * When you select an image to view, sometimes the manifest includes more than one page, and when you use the "click to enlarge manifest" link, the image that appears is not always the first page of the record. You may need to click on the "previous" or "next" links to view the remaining pages of the full manifest.
 * The information was supplied by the immigrant or a traveling companion (usually a family member). Incorrect information was occasionally given, or mistakes may have been made when the clerk guessed at the spelling of foreign names
 * The passenger arrival list was used by legal inspectors to cross-examine each immigrant during a legal inspection prior to the person being allowed to live in America. Only two percent of the prospective immigrants were denied entry.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking For, Now What?

 * Check for variant spellings of the names.
 * Look for an index. You may also need to search the passenger lists year by year.
 * Search the records and indexes of other port cities.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Image Citation