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Before the 1820s, the ship's manifests were normally deposited at the port of arrival and were originally kept at these colonial ports. But since there was no central depository for these early records, many of them have been lost, or destroyed. Those that remain are scattered into libraries, historical societies, museums and private hands. These original records are rarely indexed. The United States Congress had first required the deposit of lists of passengers of vessels arriving at U.S. ports in 1798. From this act of Congress, apparently only a few fragmentary lists of aliens disembarking at Salem and Beverly, Massachusetts, now survive. The 1920 Census gives yeare of Naturalization.

Customs officials at each port did maintain lists of vessels arriving at the port. For example, those for the port of New York, extending from 1789 to 1919, have been microfilmed as National Archives Record Administration (NARA) Microfilm Publication M1066 (27 rolls). Note that these port records contain no passenger lists, but rather consist of a list of ships and provide information concerning a vessel's port of origin, master, tonnage, nationality, value of its freight, and custom duties.

If you were unsuccessful in finding your ancestor by using any of the previous resources, you should search indexes, bibliographies, and compilations that are available in libraries with genealogy collections. The LDS Family History Centers also have some of these books and indexes available on fiche - check their catalog. (Cyndi's List)

100,000 British Home Children were sent to Canada by over fifty childcare organizations from 1870-1940. Few of the British Home Children were able to find their families once abandoned in Canada by the organizations that deported them. Many of their descendants continue to search for their 20 million unknown British relatives.

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