The United States has been the destination for millions of immigrants. You can find out if your immigrants entered the United Stated through New York City by checking out Ellis Island immigration records. Ellis Island opened in 1892, taking over from the Castle Garden facility. There is a lot of information about Ellis Island immigration that is available to you on the Ellis Island website. Information such as the island’s history, its immigrants, and its immigration records can be found within it’s easy to use search functions.

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Castle Garden in New York City was one of the processing centers where immigrants from all over the world passed through when they immigrated to the United States. Castle Garden immigration records are available for the 10 millions plus immigrants to the United States passing through this port even before Ellis Island was opened. Castle Garden was in operation from 1830 to 1892, which was when Ellis Island was opened.

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The most well known site on the Internet for finding your ancestors in free passenger lists is the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (ISTG). The ISTG has been online since September 1998 with a few volunteers who transcribed passenger lists. The ISTG now has over 500 volunteers who are completing this important work to be published on their website. As of today, there are over 9,000 passengers lists that have been transcribed! The lists that they transcribe are mainly from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm collection.

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