Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948

When looking for our ancestors who first came to America, many of us tend to look first at the arrivals into New York City, however not all people entered there. Other ports, such as Baltimore, Boston and Charleston were a few of those locations where are ancestors first saw the country that would be their new home.
Yesterday, Familysearch.org added the Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948. The collection, which includes over 1.6 million records, is name search able. The records are very good and provide wonderful information for researchers. The example below shows three siblings, Chaje, Israel and Jossel Cohen. The record shows they were on their way from Russia to an eventual destination of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to reunite with their brother, Hirsch .

The record shows that they started their journey on the 9th day of November 1905 on board the ship Brandenburg, and arriving in Baltimore on the 23th day of November. The record lists the entire family as Hebrew and gives their last residence. These records are a great source of information for researchers and would be a great source for those who are having a difficult time finding the arrival records of their ancestors.

Louisiana, New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1820-1945

One of the earliest challenges faced by most researchers looking for their Jewish ancestors is finding them as they arrived in the United States. There are many different ports where they may have landed and its not always easy to find which one to search first.

As more and more of those records become available online that search is helped.
Now, FamilySearch has begun to add the original passenger lists for the arrivals at the Port of New Orleans for the years 1820- 1945. The records for New Orleans are so nice because so many include Sephardic Jews who came into the United States from the Caribbean and South America. The collection is name search able and images are still being added The information is very good. The pages below show the arrival of Moses Cohen, who arrived on 29 Aug 1919 on board the S.S. Metapan which was sailing from the Christobal Canal Zone.

From the passenger list we are able to find that he was 32 years of age, a merchant, a citizen of Cyprus. We also learn that he was Hebrew and that his last permanent address was in Colon, Panama. His closest relative still living in that country is his brother Joseph who resides in Panama City. Records of this type are such an amazing source of great information.

California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953

When looking for our ancestors in the United States, one of the first places we search are the passenger lists of arrivals. While many people first check ports such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston or New Orleans, there are other less researched ports.
One of these ports is San Francisco, which has just had over 900,000 of its images added to www.familysearch.org. The collection, California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953, contains some incredible information for researchers.
Using information I already knew,  I searched for Abraham Cohen, who was born in Constantinople, Turkey in 1870. He and his wife and 3 children arrived in San Francisco in the late 1920's. That information quickly led me to the Abraham Cohen I was looking for. The image below is the basic information provided at FamilySearch.

After verifying that this was the person I wanted, I was then able to look at the original passenger list by clicking on the view Image button on the lower right side. That image, shown below, gives great information on the family, and shows that they left Shanghai, China on 10 July 1929.

This collection is very easy to use and as always with FamilySearch is free of charge.