Advanced Genealogy
Passenger lists
The first brush a new arrival to Britain might have had with authority would have been at the port where the ship that carried them docked. Since the end of the eighteenth century there has been intermittent regulation requiring immigrants either to register on arrival or to be registered by the master of the ship they travelled on. However, the piecemeal nature of the legislation means there is no guarantee that you will be able to find your ancestor. Time has also taken its toll: all that survives from records made between 1793 and 1815 is a list of aliens who arrived at British ports between August 1810 and May 1811. In fact, apart from certificates of arrival between 1836 and 1852, which give the person’s name, nationality, profession, date of arrival and signature, and incomplete lists drawn up by the ship’s master between 1836 and 1869, there are few official documents until around 1878.
Passenger lists were kept from 1878, though only on ships arriving in Britain from outside Europe. If the ship’s journey originated outside Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, those that boarded at a European port and disembarked in Britain would be included too. Unfortunately, if you do not have a reasonable idea of when the person you are searching for arrived, or don’t know the name of the ship on which they travelled, your search could take as long as your ancestor’s journey. The records described above can be searched at the PRO in Kew.
Note that because the Irish were regarded as British citizens. There are few records of other departure from Ireland.