MIGRATION 

Migrants and passengers

If you want to find out about someone who moved to Britain, emigrated from Britain, was a passenger on board a ship or who became a naturalised British citizen, there are many potential sources of information. It will help your search if you know some basic facts, including:

• the name and date of birth of the passenger
• the name of the ship and port of departure or arrival, if they travelled by ship
• the country of origin (immigrants and naturalised Britons)
• the date and place of arrival in the UK, and means of travel (immigrants)
• the date of application for denization or naturalisation (naturalised Britons)

IMmigrants

Records about people from other countries coming to live in the UK have been created by various government departments at different times. Many records of immigration have been destroyed.

For more information, see advice from The National Archives on: Looking for records of an immigrant

Emigrants

The best place to look for information about Britons who emigrated is in the archives of the destination country, as there are relatively few records of people leaving Britain.

For more information, see advice from The National Archives on: Looking for records of an emigrant

Passengers

Most inward passenger lists from 1890 to 1960 and outward passenger lists from 1890 to 1960 have survived. Passenger lists are not held by The National Archives after 1960, when air travel became more common. No air passenger lists have survived.

For more information see advice from The National Archives on: Looking for records of a passenger

Naturalised Britons

Many naturalisation case papers are held by The National Archives and are name searchable in the Catalogue. Some naturalisation case papers are held by the Home Office. For more information see advice from The National Archives on: Looking for records of a naturalised Briton

Digitised records online

• Ancestry.co.uk: incoming passenger lists
• The National Archives’ DocumentsOnline: aliens registration cards
• Ancestorsonboard: outward passenger lists

Further information

The National Archives has published a book on migration: Migration Records: A guide for family historians, by Roger Kershaw (2009).

At the show

Exhibitors to visit include:

• Ancestry.co.uk
• Findmypast.com

You can also go to workshops on emigration records (Friday 26th) and immigration records (Saturday 27th).

• See the workshop programme for more details.