How to look for records of... Emigration and emigrants

Our records are the records sent to us for permanent preservation by the central government of the United Kingdom. Most of the records related to emigration are policy and administrative documents, rather than records of emigrants themselves. As we hold relatively few records of people leaving Britain, you are more likely to find records of migrants in their destination country (see section 3). There are, nonetheless, large numbers of records in our collection in which you can identify individual emigrants, but there is no single index for them so tracking them down means looking in a variety of different record series.

The records of emigrants divide into two broad types: records of the journeys that emigrants made and of their lives once settled overseas. Records of British emigrants once they were settled abroad were much more likely to have been kept if they moved to a British colony. The bulk of the records we hold for British emigration were originally kept by the government departments concerned with life in the colonies.

The government departments, past and present, most concerned with matters of emigration are the following (each with its National Archives department code in brackets):

• Colonial Office (CO)
• Dominions Office (DO)
• Home Office (HO)
• Board of Trade (BT)

3. Records of emigrants in their destination countries

Of course, emigrants from the UK become immigrants in the countries they travel to. In general, you are more likely to find a record of a person, after they emigrate, in the destination country.

The following libraries and record offices in popular destination countries for UK emigrants have much material on immigration:

An advertisement from 1889 for the White Star Line (catalogue reference COPY 1/930). White Star Line ships transported tens of thousands of British emigrants to Canada and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Buy a high-quality reproduction of this image through our Image Library.

USA

• US National Archives
• Library of Congress
• The Ellis Island Foundation

Canada

• Library and Archives Canada

Australia

• National Archives of Australia
• National Library of Australia
• State Library of New South Wales
• State Library Victoria

New Zealand

• Archives New Zealand

South Africa

• National Archives of South Africa

Other significant collections of emigrant records are available through:

• The Society of Genealogists
• FamilySearch

4. Online records

Most of our online records in this subject area are documents listing individual emigrants. If you cannot find who you are looking for in the records described in this section, your search is likely to become very much more complicated and will probably require consultation of original documents at The National Archives in Kew (see sections 5 to 11).

4.1 Outward passenger lists, 1890-1960

Search outward passenger lists on findmypast.co.uk (£) for lists of passengers leaving by ship from UK and Irish ports and travelling to places outside Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, including the USA, Canada, India, New Zealand and Australia.

The lists include citizens of other countries who travelled through the UK on their way to other destinations. Lists were not kept for every ship and some have been lost.

The information on any list can vary from the next but some of the details you may find on a list include:

• age at departure
• profession
• last address in the UK
• country of departure
• country of destination

A cross section of a passenger list from 23 September 1940 for the RMS Samaria, bound for New York from Liverpool (catalogue reference BT 27/1557). This list shows passengers who were not British nationals.

4.2 Early emigration from Britain, 1636-1815

Search a variety of early emigration records, largely of emigrants to North America and the West Indies, covering intermittent year ranges between the 17th and early 19th centuries. These are records brought together from the Treasury, the Exchequer, the Colonial Office and the Audit Office, on findmypast.co.uk (£) including details of emigrants from Britain to:

• Canada 1815 and 1818-1822 (AO 3/144)
• America and the West Indies 1634-1638 and 1740-1761 (CO 1/8-9 and CO 324/55-56)
• North America and the West Indies, 1773-1775 (T 47/9-12)

4.3 Registers of travel to Europe, New England, Barbados and other colonies, 1573-1677

Search the Registers Of Licences To Pass Beyond The Seas 1573-1677 (E 157) on findmypast.co.uk (£) for records of soldiers leaving for the Low Countries (1613-1633), individuals travelling to Europe (1573-1677) and to Barbados, New England and other colonies (1634-1639 and 1677).

4.4 Emigration to Barbados, 1678-1680 and 1715

Search for details of emigrants from England, and later Britain, who settled in Barbados on findmypast.co.uk (£) within Colonial Office papers and correspondence (CO 1/44 and CO 28/16), which include a census of the white population in Barbados from 1715.

4.5 Immigrant Ancestors Project

The Immigrant Ancestors Project – sponsored by the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University – uses emigration records, including sources at The National Archives, to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in their native countries. Volunteers working with scholars and researchers at Brigham Young University are creating a database of millions of immigrants based on these emigration sources.

4.6 Migration to the New Worlds

The Adam Matthew website (£ institutional subscription required or free to view at The National Archives) includes a selection of National Archives records relating to emigrants and emigration to the New World, covering the period 1800 to 1924.

5. Passenger lists

6. Emigration to North America

This section covers records and record series specific to emigration to North America. For more general advice on colonial era documents for this region see our guide to records of American and West Indian colonies before 1782.

6.1 Lists of 17th-century emigrants

John C Hotten compiled Original lists of persons who went from great Britain to the American plantations 1600-1700 (London 1874) based on Colonial Office records, as well as the Registers of Licences to Pass beyond the Seas kept by the Exchequer (series E 157) for passengers requiring licences to travel to New England, Barbados, Maryland, Virginia and other colonies 1634-1639 and 1677.

See the ‘Online records’ section of this guide for advice on how to view the registers in series E 157.

6.2 Records of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1667-1991

The Hudson’s Bay Company was founded in 1670. Its chief interests were originally the fur trade, exploration and settlement. After 1870, when its territory of Rupert’s Land was incorporated into the Dominion of Canada, its interests became more varied.

The Hudson’s Bay Company archives, covering 1667-1991, are held on microfilm at The National Archives in record series BH 1. The original Hudson Bay Company archives are held at the Archives of Manitoba, Canada. The records include names and information about settlers who emigrated to North America and worked for the company.

6.3 Records of the West New Jersey Society, 1675-1921

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

6.4 Directory of Scottish settlers in North America

David Dobson’s Directory of Scottish settlers in North America 1625-1825 (Baltimore, 1984) draws on records in the 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).

6.5 Records of the American Loyalist Claims Commission

Search for records of the American Loyalist Claims Commission in T 79.

There is an index to these records printed in Lists of the Records of the Treasury, the Paymaster General’s Office, the Exchequer and Audit Department and the Board of Trade to 1837 (Public Record Office Lists and Indexes No XLVI; London 1922) pp.105-110. A similar list of East Florida claims for compensation for territory ceded in 1783 to Spain is in the same volume, pp.95-97.

6.6 Records of emigrants to America, 1773-1775

Bernard Bailyn’s Voyagers to the West: Emigration from Britain to America on the Eve of the Revolution (I B Tauris, 1986), utilizes the registers kept by port customs officials of emigrants leaving for the New World – these register are held in T 47/9-12 and are available to view on Findmypast.co.uk (£) – see section 4.2.

They give a person’s name, age, occupation, reason for leaving the country, last place of residence, date of departure and destination.

6.7 Colonial Office correspondence

Colonial Office records on North America are mostly for colonies which later became part of Canada. Some of the records in the following record series contain names of people who emigrated. Click on the catalogue reference and browse the series by reference and date:

7. Emigration to Australia

See our guide on Criminal transportation for information about the records available on convicts transported to Australia.

Many of the record series referred to in this section 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 to Australia as ordinary emigrants until 1890.

The website of The National Archives of Australia has more information about emigration to Australia. In addition, details of some 8.9 million free settlers to New South Wales, 1826-1922 can be searched and downloaded online at Ancestry.com.au (£).

This notice dates from 1841 (catalogue reference CO 384/66). It was issued after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which stipulated that provision could be made for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by the pauper’s home parish (see section 9).

8. Emigration to New Zealand

The first European settlement of New Zealand was around 1820. The New Zealand Company was formed in 1839 and incorporated in 1841 with power to buy, sell, settle and cultivate land in New Zealand, and details of British emigrants can be found in the company’s records, now held at The National Archives. It surrendered its charter in 1850 and was dissolved in 1858.

For further information see the Archives New Zealand website.

9. Pauper emigration

We hold records of the Poor Law Commission and related bodies. These records include material about pauper emigration under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The act stipulated that provision could be made for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by the pauper’s home parish.

• Search Poor Law Union papers 1834-1900 in MH 12 using keywords like ‘emigration’, ‘emigrant’ or ‘emigrate’. Try adding words and phrases such as ‘lists of persons’, ‘children’ ‘Australia’, ‘New Zealand’, ‘Canada’ or ‘Quebec’.

These records include lists of paupers who were ‘seeking to emigrate’ as well as those of paupers who had already emigrated to the colonies.

Look for correspondence between the Poor Law authorities and the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners in:

• MH 13/252 for 1853-1854
• MH 19/22 for 1836-1876

Some of the correspondence of the Poor Law Commission and Board with other government departments and local government services relates to emigration:

• Use the registers of correspondence in MH 20 to locate items of correspondence in MH 19. The registers, as with the correspondence itself, are arranged by government department so to have an idea of where to look for records of emigration you will need to determine which departments the Poor Law Commission would be corresponding with on that subject – the departments listed in section 2 would be a good start.

10. Child emigration

Child emigration schemes operated in Britain from 1618 to 1967. About 150,000 children were sent to the British colonies and dominions during this time, with numbers peaking between the 1870s and 1914 when approximately 80,000 children were sent to Canada alone.

Many of them were pauper children, often in the care of voluntary organisations (in the mid-18th century around one in three of all paupers was under 16). The enormous strain on poor law authorities meant they could not find apprenticeships for all pauper children. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1850 provided a response, allowing Boards of Guardians to send children under 16 overseas for the first time. The majority of schemes began in 1870. Frequently it was the voluntary organisations that arranged for the child’s migration.

They were sent mainly to North America and Australia, but also Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean.

An exhibition and website on child migration called On their own – Britain’s child migrants has been developed by the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

10.1 Records of pauper children sent abroad

This notice dates from 1841 (catalogue reference CO 384/66). It was issued after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which stipulated that provision could be made for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by the pauper’s home parish (see section 9).

We hold few emigration records for child paupers and those that we do hold tend to record only 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. See section 9 for advice on how to search for records of pauper emigrants, including children, in general.

Among the most detailed records we hold of this kind are the reports on pauper child emigrants resident in Canada, 1887 to 1892, held in MH 19/9. The reports comment on the children’s condition, health, character, schooling, frequency of church attendance, and each child’s view of their new homes. They cite the Poor Law Union or parish from which they were sent, as well as each child’s name, age and host’s name and address.

The following archives may provide a better chance of finding details of individual children:

• Registers and case files of child emigrants (subject to 100-year closure periods from the date of birth) within the records relating to Maria Rye and Annie Macpherson, who both championed child emigration, and to the work of Dr Barnardo’s, held by the University of Liverpool’s Department of Special Collections and Archives.
• Photographs of former Barnardo’s residents in Barnardo’s Photographic and Film Archive.
• Canadian government inspectors’ reports and statistical information regarding child migrants in Parliamentary Papers (institutional subscription required).
• Home Children’s record collections on Findmypast brings together Canadian records of child immigrants to Canada including searchable inspection reports and records of children sent to Canada by Boards of Guardians.

10.2 Children’s Overseas Reception Board, 1940-1944

In May 1940 the growing threat to the UK from both invasion and mass air attack led to offers of hospitality for British children from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the USA. About 11,000 children were evacuated overseas via private schemes before, on 7 June 1940, the creation of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB).

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 stopped on 17 September 1940 when SS City of Benares was torpedoed with the loss of 77 Canada-bound children on board. All future CORB sailings were cancelled, but the Board remained active until its disbandment four years later. Many CORB children returned to the UK after the hostilities to be reunited with their families.

Search our catalogue using the search box below by name for case histories of the CORB children evacuated overseas during the Second World War (DO 131).

Narrow your search by using quotation marks to find a person’s full name, such as ‘John Williams’