Emigrants

Domestic Records Information 107

BT 27/931, Outward Passenger List, Southampton, 1920

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Records Relating to General Destinations
3. Privy Council Registers 1540-1978 (PC 2 )
4. Plantation Books 1678-1806 (PC 5/1-16 )
5. Treasury Board Papers 1557-1920 (T1 )
6. Other Treasury Papers
7. Chancery Patent Rolls (C 66 )
8. Audit Office Declared Accounts 1779-1827 (AO 1 )
9. Assize Records 1559-1972 (ASSI 1-80 )
10. Admiralty Medical Journals (ADM 101 )
11. Registers, Various (ADM 6 )
12. Admiralty Medical Journals (ADM 101 )
13. Colonial Office Emigration Original Correspondence 1817-1896 (CO 384 )
14. Ministry of Health Poor Law Union Papers 1834-1890 (MH 12 )
15. Foreign Office Passport Registers 1795-1898 (FO 610 )
16. Passenger Lists (BT 27 )
17. Registers of Passenger Lists, 1906-1951: BT 32
18. Child Emigration
19. Records Relating to Individual Colonies:
20. The National Archives' Library Bibliography

1. Introduction

There are numerous references in documents in The National Archives to individuals and families emigrating to other countries, but no single index to the names of such persons. The chief sources of information are the Colonial Office records and those of the Home Office, Board of Trade and Treasury. Printed calendars, with nominal indexes, of some of these records are available both at The National Archives and in many university and large public libraries. Other lists will be found in the printed works referred to in the text, most of which can be consulted in The National Archives. Many overseas libraries and record offices have copies of original material, notably the Library of Congress in Washington, The National Archives of Canada in Ottawa, the National Library at Canberra and the Mitchell Library in Sydney. The following is not a comprehensive list of all the appropriate sources but it gives some idea of the scope available.

2. Records Relating to General Destinations

This section covers series of documents where information on emigrants going all over the world can be found. They may well complement the suggestions made in the later sections which deal with specific destinations. The Society of Genealogists holds the best collection of printed material which can be consulted for a small fee and the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints maintains considerable collections of lists compiled from both British and American sources. Any family historian should use the guidance offered in The British Overseas: A guide to records of their births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials available in the United Kingdom, 3rd (revised) edition (Guildhall Library, 1994).

3. Privy Council Registers 1540-1978 (PC 2 )

These contain numerous entries about the colonies as well as petitions and letters of people going there or already resident there. These are supplemented by the Papers of the Privy Council (PC 1 ) which include some papers relating to the colonies, those for 1676-1783 being calendared in the Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, 1613-1783, 6 volumes (London 1908-12) together with all the register entries from 1613-1783.

4. Plantation Books 1678-1806 (PC 5/1-16 )

These include copies of commissions, instructions, orders and letters to governors and other officials, warrants for the appointment of Colonial councillors, for letters of marque, grants and surrenders of offices. The material is included in the Acts of the Privy Council referred to above.

5. Treasury Board Papers 1557-1920 (T1 )

These contain the original correspondence of the Board together with occasional minutes, reports etc. They are described in the Calendar of Treasury papers 1557-1728, 32 volumes (London 1868-1889) and continued in the Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, 1729-1745, 5 volumes (London 1898-1903); the indexes show the considerable amount of colonial business handled by the Treasury and include many references to people in or going to the colonies.

6. Other Treasury Papers

Treasury general out-letter books 1668-1920 (T 27 ); Minute books 1667-1870 (T 29 and T 99 ); King's Warrants 1667-1857 (T 52 ); Warrants relating to money 1676-1839 (T 53 ); Warrants not relating to money 1667-1849 (T 54 ) and Order books 1667-1831 (T 60 ) all contain references to the colonies particularly to America. They are all included in the Calendar of Treasury Books 1660-1718 (London 1904-1958) and in the Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers 1729-1745.

7. Chancery Patent Rolls (C 66 )

These contain various entries relating to grants of offices and lands in America and elsewhere, some of which can be traced in the indexes available at Kew. Chancery Masters Exhibits (C 103 -C 114 ) include material relating to grants of lands and sometimes wills.

8. Audit Office Declared Accounts 1779-1827 (AO 1 )

These include references to the pensions and allowances paid to emigrants, American loyalists and others in the colonies as do the Declared Accounts (in books) 1803-1848 (AO 2 ) which also give lists of establishments in some of the colonies. The Accounts various 1539-1886 (AO 3 ) list the names of some individual settlers.

9. Assize Records 1559-1972 (ASSI 1-80 )

These can provide details of sentences and those transported; see our research guides on Assizes and transportation records for information: Assizes: English, 1656-1971, Assizes: Criminal Trials, Assizes: English: Key for Criminal Trials, Assizes: Welsh, 1831-1971, Transportation to America and the West Indies, 1615-1776 and Transportation to Australia, 1787-1868 .

10. Admiralty Medical Journals (ADM 101 )

These include those of emigrant ships 1815-1853;

11. Registers, Various (ADM 6 )

These include registers of convicts on ships, 1819-1834;

12. Transport Department Records (ADM 108 and MT 23 )

These relate collectively to the transport by sea of military forces to various parts of the world 1773-1917.

13. Colonial Office Emigration Original Correspondence 1817-1896 (CO 384 )

This contains many letters from settlers or people intending to settle in the colonies; names appear in the Entry books 1814-1871 (CO 385 ) and in the Land and Emigration Commission papers 1833-1894 (CO 386 ). Some volumes of Colonies general, Original Correspondence (CO 323 ) and Entry Books (CO 324 and CO 381 ) can also yield details of land grants and applications therefore. It is worth searching the original correspondence files for all the countries colonized by the British since nearly all contain similar material.

14. Ministry of Health Poor Law Union Papers 1834-1890 (MH 12 )

MH 12/8474, Norfolk Poor Law Union Correspondence

These include material about parish-assisted emigration under the new Poor Law of 1834, arranged alphabetically under county and union. Correspondence between the General Board of Health and the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners 1853-4 is in MH 13/252 and between the Poor Law authorities and the Emigration Commissioners 1836-1876 in MH 19/22 .

15. Foreign Office Passport Registers 1795-1898 (FO 610 )

These contain entries, in chronological order of passport number, which contain the names, destinations and the names of referees of all those who applied for passports. Such applications, however, were abnormal and the majority of emigrants did not apply for a passport. Indexes of names (FO 611 ) give the date of issue and serial number of each passport between 1851-1862 and 1874-1898. See our Research Guide on Passport Records for information.

16. Passenger Lists (BT 27 )

Modern records of the Board of Trade can give assistance in tracing emigrants. The sea going Passenger Lists, Outwards (BT 27 ), from 1890 to 1960, contain the names of the persons leaving the United Kingdom from ports within England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland for final destinations outside of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Some vessels dropped off and picked up passengers in European or Mediterranean ports en route.

The lists are copies furnished by ships' masters, as required by law, to port officers of the Ministry of Transport and sent to the Board of Trade for use in compiling statistics. The information given in the lists usually includes age, occupation, sometimes the address of each passenger, and date of his/her leaving the country: but there is no indication as to how long he/she intended to stay abroad. The lists are arranged under the names of the ports of departure.

The records can be accessed by name, ship, ports of departure and destination and date of departure from ancestorsonboard. Access is free when you visit The National Archives, Kew.

In addition, ADM 30/35 contains passenger lists of H M steam packets carrying passengers to, from and within the Mediterranean area 1831 to 1834.

The keeping of passenger lists was discontinued in 1960.

17. Registers of Passenger Lists, 1906-1951: BT 32

These contain names of ships for which passenger lists exist in BT 26 and BT 27 . The entries are not complete, however - the earliest years have entries for a few ports only, and there are omissions. For readers hoping to find the name of a passenger in BT 26 or BT 27 , they are of limited use, and may only be helpful if the name of the ship is already known. They do not contain the names of passengers, nor the destination of ships. Before October 1908 the registers relate only to the ports of Southampton, Bristol and Weymouth. The date shown against each list is the date on which the passenger list was received by the Board of Trade, not the date of embarkation or docking.

There are no comparable Lists or Registers concerned with persons arriving in the United Kingdom by air.

For further information, see the Research Guide on Passenger Lists.

18. Child Emigration

British child emigration schemes operated from 1618 to 1967. During this period it was estimated that some 150,000 children were sent to the British Colonies and Dominions, most notably, America, Australia, and Canada, but also Rhodesia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean. Many of the children were in the care of the voluntary organisations who arranged for their migration. Child emigration peaked from the 1870s until 1914, and some 80,000 children were sent to Canada alone during this period.

Before 1972, responsibility for the application of various acts relating to children lay with the Home Office. MH 102 consists of policy files in the Home Office six figure registered file series. These cover all aspects of child detention in remand homes and industrial and approved schools, including subjects such as absconding, education, general health and welfare, boarding out, fostering and adoption, holiday camps, emigration, employment and aftercare. Related policy files in the CHN (Children) series, which originated in the Home Office in 1949, can be found in BN 29 and BN 62, with representative case files in BN 28, though the vast majority of these files are closed for 75 years. Earlier files can be found in general series of Home Office registered papers in HO 45 and HO 144, under the subject cuts, Children and Emigration. Mainly policy and correspondence files relating to the emigration of children under the Children Act, 1908, ch. 67, the records include schemes for the emigration of children to Canada and Australia.

The records concerning child emigration in MH 102 are mainly policy and correspondence files relating to schemes between 1910 and 1960 set up by the UK, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Records include movements set up by Dr. Barnardo's Homes, the Fairbridge Society, the Overseas Migration Board, and the Big Brother emigration scheme, a voluntary organisation set up in 1925 for the purpose of fostering the emigration of boys to Australia aged 16 and 17 and 'big brothering' them until the age of at least 21. The Big Brother scheme attracted over 2,000 children before the Second World War and a further 1,400 between 1947 and 1954. The boys, recruited through UK press publicity and applications to orphanages, were selected to work in trades in Tasmania and New South Wales. The boys mainly worked in the agricultural industry and were each allotted a big brother to take the place of family and friends until the age of 21. Some personnel files are closed for 75 or 100 years.

18.1. Emigration of Pauper Children

It was estimated that in the mid-eighteenth century, one in three of all paupers was under 16. This put an enormous strain on poor law authorities who could not find apprenticeships for all pauper children. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1850, cap cI, allowed Boards of Guardians to send children under 16 overseas for the first time (though it was not until 1870 that the majority of schemes began to take place).

There are few TNA documents available that record child emigrants for this period. LGB poor law records inMH 12 tend to only record statistical information on the numbers of children sent overseas, though they sometimes include poor law union posters giving notice of the names and ages of children being sent abroad. Archives of the voluntary agencies may provide more details. Records relating to Maria Rye, Annie Macpherson and those relating to the work of Dr Barnardo's are in the custody of the Department of Special Collections and Archives (Social Works Archives), Sydney Jones Library, the University of Liverpool, PO Box 123, Liverpool L69 3DA. These records include registers of child emigrants and case files. Such personal archives are subject to access restrictions. The closed period is usually 100 years. In addition to these archives, Barnardo's retains an extensive archive of some 400,000 photographs detailing the work of the charity. The photographs date from 1866. Further information is available at Barnardo's Photographic and Film Archive, Tanners Lane, Barkingside, Ilford, Essex, IG6 1QL.

MH 19 : Local Government Board and predecessors: Correspondence with Government Offices, 1834-1909, contains correspondence of the Poor Law Commission and Board and the Local Government Board with other government departments, the Metropolitan Police, the Metropolitan Board of Works and parliamentary officers relating to poor law administration and, after 1871, public health and local government services.

The series includes volumes of internal correspondence and papers of the Poor Law Board and the Local Government Board (LGB), including draft orders and Bills, minutes and memoranda on establishment and organisation matters, precedents, general questions of administration and correspondence with the Treasury. Some volumes relate to specific subjects, particularly plague, but also anthrax, cholera, leprosy, smallpox, yellow fever, quarantine and emigration. The records are arranged by names of corresponding departments. Registers of correspondence are in MH 20.

MH 19/9 contains LGB copies of enclosures and reports regarding emigration of pauper children to Canada, 1887-1892. Within this document, there are detailed reports on pauper child emigrants resident in Canada between 1887-1892. The reports, compiled by the Secretary Department of Agriculture on instruction from the Dominion of Canada Immigration Officer give comments about their condition, health, character, schooling, frequency of church attendance, and on each child"s view of their new homes. The reports cite the Union or parish from which they were sent, as well as each child"s name, age and host"s name and address. Further Canadian government inspectors" reports and statistical information regarding child migrants can be found in Parliamentary Papers, available on microfiche in the microfilm reading room.

18.2. Children's Overseas Reception Board, 1940-44 (DO 131 )

In May 1940 the growing menace to the UK from both invasion and mass air attack, led to spontaneous offers of hospitality for British children from the Dominions and the USA. Offers were received through the Canadian Government and on the 31 May from private homes in Canada. In a few days similar offers were received from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.

On 7 June 1940 the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was set up with these offers.

Prior to the setting up of CORB, some 11,000 children had been evacuated overseas via private schemes. A total of 3,100 children were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa under the CORB scheme between July and September 1940. Evacuation ceased on 17 September 1940 when the vessel SS City of Benares was torpedoed with the loss of 77 Canada-bound children on board. All future CORB sailings were cancelled even though the Board remained active until its disbandment four years later. Many CORB children returned to the UK after the end of hostilities to be reunited with their families.

The records in this series in The National Archives consist of administrative files, a selection of case files relating to children (DO 131/94 -105 ) and their escorts (DO 131/71 -87 ) and register of child applicants, searchable by name of child (DO 131/106 -113 ). The majority of these files were destroyed under statute in 1959. Dominions Office policy files relating to the activities of the Board are in DO 35 .

Contemporary newspapers in the destination countries are a source of comments and photographs, especially concerning the arrival of evacuees in the Summer of 1940.

Additional records about child migrants may be held in the archives of the recipient countries, such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand (see below for relevant web addresses).

19. Records Relating to Individual Colonies:

19.1. America and the West Indies

References to the settlement of America before 1782 can be found in our Research Guide American and West Indian Colonies. In addition a considerable amount of information on emigrants to and settlers in America and the West Indies can be found in printed works available as above. The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1574-1738 (London 1860-1969) includes brief descriptions, which are indexed, of the Colonial papers, general series (CO 1 ) and the Board of Trade minutes 1675-1704 (CO 391 ); the Journals of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 14 volumes (London, 1920-1938) contain a full printed version of the minutes from 1704-1782. Original Correspondence as well as Sessional Papers, Entry Books, and Miscellanea are described in the Public Record Office Lists and Indexes No XXXVI List of Colonial Office records (New York, Kraus Reprint 1963) and C M Andrews Guide to the Material for American History to 1793 in the Public Record Office of Great Britain, 2 volumes (Washington 1912 and 1914), although the references in this may need to be converted to modern references. The Calendar of Treasury Books 1660-1718 and the Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers 1729-1745 as above should also be consulted.

Many authors have used the public records to compile lists of immigrants and in addition there are numerous composite lists which include American records of passengers and immigrants which were compiled on arrival. Ship Passenger Lists (California, 1977-80) edited by Carl Boyer and Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (Michigan, 1981) edited by P W Filby are two of the more important as well as the continuing series of volumes published by the Genealogical Publishing Company. The Colonial papers, general series, as well as the Registers for passengers requiring licences to travel to New England, Barbados, Maryland, Virginia and other colonies 1634-1639 and 1677 (E 157 ) were used by J C Hotten to compile Original Lists of Persons Emigrating to America 1600-1700 (London 1874).

Lists of names of Palatine subjects who emigrated to America via Holland and England in 1709 are contained in several series of records of the Colonial Office and the Treasury, many being printed in W A Knittle Early eighteenth century Palatine emigration (Philadelphia, 1937), L D MacWethy The books of names especially relating to the Early Palatines and the First Settlers of the Mohawk Valley (New York, 1933) and in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Records, vols XL and Xli (New York, 1909 and 1910).

P W Coldham Bonded passengers to America (Baltimore, 1983) covers all the available manuscript material on convicted felons who were transported from Middlesex (1617-1775) and the Western, Oxford, Norfolk, Northern and Midland Assize circuits (1663-1775). See also our Research Guide Transportation to America and the West Indies, 1615-1776.

David Dobson Directory of Scottish settlers in North America 1625-1825 (Baltimore, 1984) used Audit Office accounts(AO 3 ), Prince Edward Island original correspondence (CO 226/23 ), Home Office correspondence and papers, Scotland (HO 102 ) and the Treasury registers (T 47 ) amongst other sources from elsewhere. Much detailed work on emigrants listed in the registers in T 47/9-11 (1773-1776) has also been published by Bernard Bailyn Voyagers to the West (I B Tauris, 1986). There is a card index to the same in the Reference Room at Kew.

An index to American Loyalist claimants from the Minute books of the Claims Commission (T 79 ) is printed in Public Record Office Lists and Indexes No XLVI Records of the Treasury, the Paymaster General's Office, the Exchequer and Audit Department and the Board of Trade to 1837 (London 1922) p 105-110; a similar list of East Florida claims for compensation for territory ceded in 1783 to Spain is in the same volume, p 95-97.

West New Jersey Society records 1675-1921 (TS 12 ) relate to tracts of land in West and East New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New England and elsewhere divided up as shares of the West New Jersey Society, a company formed about 1691. The records contain many names in original correspondence, minute books, registers of shares, original deeds, papers about claims etc.

Ira A Glazier has edited lists of Irish immigrants arriving at the Port of New York in The Famine Immigrants (Baltimore, 1983).

Maps of early divisions of land often provide names of emigrants.

For further information check the website for the US National Archives and Records Administration at www.archives.gov.

19.2. Australia

A full description of the information available on convicts transported to Australia is available in the Research Guide Transportation to Australia, 1787-1868. Many of the series cited below refer to both convicts and settlers since, once in Australia, the two were often less distinct than when they set out. The National Archives holds no lists of passengers who sailed as ordinary emigrants until 1890. D T Hawkins Bound for Australia (Phillimore, 1987) provides a comprehensive guide to record series at The National Archives and elsewhere which give information about emigrants to Australia. Irish emigrants and convicts to Australia are described in T J Kiernan Irish Exiles in Australia (Dublin 1954).

The New South Wales original correspondence 1784-1900 (CO 201 ), the Entry books 1786-1873 (CO 202 ) and the Registers 1849-1900 (CO 360 and 369) all contain lists of names of emigrants, settlers and convicts. A typescript index to CO 201 , 1823-1833, is available in the reference room. Also, a name index to CO 201 entries to settlers, military men, and convicts, 1823-1840, is available on microfiche in the microfilm reading room.

Home Office convicts, New South Wales and Tasmania papers 1788-1859 (HO 10 ) is a series containing a series of censuses of convicts which include the names of numerous members of the convicts' families who were not transported at all and are described as 'Came free' or 'Born in the Colony'. Of these the census of 1828 (HO 10/21-27 ) is the most complete, containing the names of more than 35,000 persons with their ages religions, families, residences, occupations and details of stock and land held.

War office in-letters (WO 1 ) contain papers relating to Army pensioners encouraged to emigrate to New South Wales and to New Zealand 1846-1851. Old series papers (WO 43 ) contain papers on measures for relief of poor pensioners and the encouragement of emigration; details of these can be found in the Public Record Office Lists and Indexes no liII - An Alphabetical Guide to War Office and other Military Records (London 1931).

The Dominions Office correspondence (DO 35/3366-3443 ) contains extensive information on post-war assisted passages to Australia as well as a number of other colonies.

For further information check the website of The National Archives of Australia at www.naa.gov.au. Using sources in Australia, details of some 8.9 million free settlers to New South Wales, 1826-1922 can be searched and downloaded for a fee online at www.ancestry.co.uk.

19.3. New Zealand

The first European settlement of New Zealand was around 1820. Details of British emigrants may be found in CO 208 : New Zealand Company Original Correspondence, 1839-1858. The New Zealand Company was formed in 1839 and incorporated in 1841 with power to buy, sell, settle and cultivate land in New Zealand. It surrendered its charter in 1850 and was dissolved in 1858. This series of records contains registers of cabin passengers emigrating, 1839-1850, in CO 208/269-272 , applications for free passage, 1839-1850, in CO 208/273-274 (indexed in CO 208/275 ), applications for land, lists of landowners, in CO 208/254-255 , lists of agents and surveyors, lists of German emigrants, and lists of maintained emigrants.

For further information check the web site for Archives New Zealand at www.archives.govt.nz.

19.4. Canada

The National Archives holds microfilm copies of the records of the Hudson"s Bay Company, founded in 1670. The records (in BH 1 ) include journals of early settlers. The Hudson's Bay Company archives are held at the Archives of Manitoba, 200 Vaughan Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3C 1T5, www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/

Canada was the major destination for many child migration schemes. Between 1869 and 1930, over 100,000 children were sent from Great Britain. Sources relating to child migrants include HO 45 and HO 144 under the subject cuts children and emigration, MH 102 and DO 131 .

For further information check the web site for The National Archives of Canada at www.archives.ca.

20. The National Archives' Library Bibliography

The following recommended publications are available in the The National Archives' Library (www.library.nationalarchives.gov.uk/library). Where indicated a publication is also available to buy at The National Archives' Bookshop (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/bookshop).

(ri2272) Last updated: 9 June 2008| © Crown Copyright 2004