Zimbabwe Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources
Search these records for the country under the name "Rhodesia".
 * 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 Rhodesia
 * 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.

British Overseas Subjects

 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Zimbabwe, index & images ($)
 * British Civil Service Evidence Of Age, Rhodesia, index ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Zimbabwe, index & images ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Zimbabwe, index & images ($)

Zimbabwe 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.

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

Immigration into Zimbabwe

 * The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was the first in a series of trading states which had developed in Zimbabwe by the time the first European explorers arrived from Portugal. These states traded gold, ivory, and copper for cloth and glass.
 * From about 1300 until 1600 the Kingdom of Zimbabwe eclipsed Mapungubwe.
 * From c. 1450 to 1760 Zimbabwe gave way to the Kingdom of Mutapa. This Shona state ruled much of the area of present-day Zimbabwe, plus parts of central Mozambique.
 * It was renowned for its strategic trade routes with the Arabs and Portugal. The Portuguese sought to monopolize this influence and began a series of wars which left the empire in near collapse in the early 17th century.
 * As a direct response to increased European presence in the interior a new Shona state emerged, known as the Rozwi Empire which expelled the Portuguese from the Zimbabwean plateau.
 * By 1838, the Ndebele clan had conquered the Rozwi Empire, along with the other smaller Shona states, and reduced them to vassaldom.
 * In the 1880s, European colonists arrived with Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company . In 1888. Rhodes obtained a concession for mining rights from King Lobengula of the Ndebele peoples.
 * Rhodes used this document in 1890 to use military action to justify establishing company rule over the area. Then, mass settlement was encouraged with the British maintaining control over labour as well as over precious metals and other mineral resources.
 * In 1895, the BSAC adopted the name "Rhodesia" for the territory. In 1898, "Southern Rhodesia" became the official name for the region south of the Zambezi, which later adopted the name "Zimbabwe".
 * In 1953, Britain consolidated the two Rhodesias with Nyasaland (Malawi) in the ill-fated Central African Federation. Britain dissolved that Union in 1963, forming three separate divisions.
 * On 1 June 1979, the country's name was changed to Zimbabwe Rhodesia.
 * Britain granted independence to the new nation of Zimbabwe at a ceremony in April 1980.

Emigration From Zimbabwe

 * An economic meltdown and the political situation in Zimbabwe have led to a flood of refugees into neighboring countries. An estimated 3.4 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population, had fled abroad by mid-2007. Some 3,000,000 of these left for South Africa and Botswana.
 * KNOMAD Statistics: Emigrants: 973,200. Top destination countries: South Africa, the United Kingdom, Malawi, Australia, Botswana, Mozambique, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Zambia