Finding ancestors who emigrated: Red Star Line, Ellis Island and Canada

In your grandmother's album there is a photo of a man in a hat in front of a wooden house. On the back, in pencil: "Jules, Detroit, 1923". Everyone knew an uncle had left for America. No one remembers when, or what became of him. With the passenger lists, you can often get surprisingly far.

The short answer

Start by searching the arrival lists on the other side of the ocean: for New York, for free in the Ellis Island database; for Canada, at Library and Archives Canada. If your ancestor left from Antwerp, the Red Star Line Museum can help too. From Rotterdam, there are the lists of the Holland America Line. And you can rest assured about the name: it was not changed at Ellis Island.

The Red Star Line from Antwerp

From 1873 to 1934, the Red Star Line sailed from Antwerp to America, carrying some two million passengers. Most of them arrived in New York. Since 2013, the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp has told their story. Together with Familiekunde Vlaanderen, the museum has a database of about 100,000 emigrants. It is not online: you consult it at the museum or at the Familiekunde Vlaanderen centre in Merksem. That is why it is best to start with the arrival lists.

Ellis Island and New York

From 1892 to 1954, Ellis Island was the gateway to the United States: more than 12 million immigrants arrived there, most of them before 1924. The database of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation can be searched for free, without an account, and covers arrivals in New York from 1820 to 1957, and other ports as well. With a free account you can save results.

A passenger list often tells you more than you expect. According to the US National Archives, it includes among other things:

• place of birth, nationality and age;
• occupation and last place of residence;
• a description of the person;
• the relative or acquaintance they were going to live with;
• how much money they had with them.

The myth of the changed name

Many families say their ancestor's name was changed at Ellis Island. That is not true. According to the historian of the US immigration service, the passenger lists were not drawn up at Ellis Island but in Europe, at departure. A name usually changed later, at naturalisation or because the emigrant adapted it themselves. So search under the original spelling as well.

Canada

Library and Archives Canada has free passenger lists from 1865 to 1935, searchable by name or by ship. People who arrived later often came through Pier 21 in Halifax, which was in use from 1928 to 1971. It is now a museum with a family history centre.

From the Netherlands

• Holland America Line: the passenger lists from 1900 to 1969, some 2.78 million entries, are held by the Rotterdam City Archives (Stadsarchief Rotterdam) and can be searched via WieWasWie and Open Archieven. Often only the person who booked the journey is listed.
• Dutch National Archives (Nationaal Archief): online name indexes of emigrants from 1845 to 1878 for the whole of the Netherlands, and from 1850 to 1900 for South Holland. For people who left after the war, to Canada from 1947 or Australia from 1949, the archives keep departure lists, but these cannot be searched by name online.

After arrival

• Censuses: US censuses are released 72 years after they were taken. Those of 1940 and 1950 are free online. The 1950 name index was created automatically and contains errors, so look at the scan itself as well.
• Naturalisation: records from before 27 September 1906 are held by the local courts. Later records, from 1906 to 1956, can be requested through the genealogy programme of the US immigration service, USCIS.

The story of the one who left

A passenger list tells you when someone left. The letters home, the photos of the new life and the stories the family kept telling tell you why. Bring them together. In The Memory Palace you can create a room for the one who left, with the list, the photos and the letters, and invite family on both sides of the ocean to take a look.

If you are just starting your family tree, read our guides to Belgium and the Netherlands too.