Welcome

Great Lakes Passengers Lists 

Part of the Michigan Family History Network

The site was created on 06 April 2002.

The mission and purpose of this site is to bring together researchers and records of passengers lists or ship manifests as they pertain to travel on the Great Lakes.  The Great Lakes has been used a mode of transportation to the inner part of the North American continent since the first immigrants landed in the 1600s.  During that time records were kept in journals, sent in letters, posted in newspapers and later the governments started to document arrivals. 

Since the lakes were a good way to travel people coming into port would book a ship or boat to the inner part of the Americas to get to their destinations.  Many times you will see a place on the Great Lakes as a place that people were ultimately coming to settle in.  They would then have to find passage to the area.  Some came by wagon, train and ships.  In later years the ships, airliners and train passengers were recorded for immigration purposes. 

Many people from Europe also traveled to Canada first and then to the USA.  Border crossings were quite common as an entrance to the USA.  Also, many people in Canada and USA had relatives in the other country and would visit from time to time.  

At one time the USA had an office in Montreal to comings and goings of US citizens through Canadian borders. The office was later moved to St. Albans, Franklin Co., Vermont. The record group is called the St. Alban's Border Crossings. These deal with ship passengers for the main part but also contain train passenger records and airplane records.

The bulk of records for the border crossings starts in 1895.  Some lists exist before this in various sources. 

Mail List - graciously hosted by the largest of genealogical mail list servers: Rootsweb.

   Search The GL Passenger Lists Site

Sources of Ship Passenger Records or Manifests:

• Records on Film - complete with film number for LDS or NARA ordering online -
• 1848 Map of Steamship Routes
• Manifest Transcriptions - Volunteers needed -  
• Journal Entries -
• Letters -
• Studies of Group Immigration - with lists of immigration dates, names, birth town, and destinations.
• Newspaper entries - 
• Online Links - 

We Need Your Help Please -
The above resources will be added to over time.  If you have a passenger list of any sort that you are willing to have put online so others may search it for their ancestors also, please contact by e-mail.  All data contributed to these pages will contain the transcriber's name and a copyright notice to the transcriber.   Volunteer Section Coming.