Irish to America, 1846-1865 Passenger and Immigration Lists

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About the Data

This data set contains information on approximately 1.5 million individuals who arrived in Boston between 1846 and 1851 and New York between 1846 and 1865. The information was compiled from the original ship manifest schedules filed by all vessels entering United States ports in accordance with an Act of Congress in March of 1819.

This data set was produced in collaboration with the Balch Institute Center for Immigration Research. Information was selected, coordinated, and arranged by the Balch Institute from ship manifest schedules at the National Immigration Archives in Philadelphia. The National Immigration Archives maintains one of the most extensive collections of European immigration data in the Western hemisphere with U.S. passenger lists from 1820 to just before World War I.

A good deal of information in this data set was collected from passengers who immigrated to the United States during the Great Famine (1845-1849). Between 1847 and 1854, 1.6 million Irish immigrated to the United States (most of them arrived in New York).
This immigration marked the first voluntary mass migration to the United States.

You can learn a great deal of information about your Irish ancestor by researching with this data set. Most of the records list an immigrant's age, gender, occupation, country of origin, village or town of origin, destination, and manifest ID number. In addition, you may learn the name of the ship on which they traveled, the port from which they embarked on their journey, the port of debarkation, and the ship's arrival date.

More About this Data Set

From this data set, you can learn a great deal of valuable information about your immigrant ancestors. With this information, you should be able to determine quite a comprehensive account of your ancestor's arrival in the United
States.The primary fields are:

Name — In the first column you will find the individual's given name and surname, as well as any titles that were included in the original index.

You should note that names of immigrants were often recorded as they were heard and that many immigrants could not spell their own names. Thus, spelling variations of names occur and members of the same family arriving at different times or places may be found under different spelling.

If you are unable to locate a particular given name and surname, try switching the given name to an initial, abbreviation, or possible misspelling. If the surname is not common, you may want to search only on the surname.

Age — The column indicates the immigrant's age at the time of arrival.

Country of Origin — The third column lists individual's last residence.

Date of Arrival — This column lists the date the immigrant arrived in the United States.

Final Destination — This last column notes the immigrant's final destination in the United States.

Additional Information — You may also learn more about your ancestor in this record, such as:

The name of the ship on which your ancestor sailed
Your ancestor's occupation
Your ancestor's village or town of origin
Your ancestor's port of embarkation
Your ancestor's port of debarkation
Your ancestor's purpose for travel
Your ancestor's manifest ID number
Your ancestor's mode of travel
Your ancestor's final destination