Dear Baden-Wuerttemberg List Friends, In addition to my earlier notes about U. S. immigration ports, I am sharing below excerpts of an earlier BW List message of mine from 2002 which makes some observations about immigration through Canadian ports of entry. Sometimes, family researchers are unaware (or forget) that many immigrants from Europe who ultimately settled somewhere in the United States may have actually entered North America through a NON-U. S. port in Canada. I was personally surprised to discover, for example, that my immigrant maternal grandfather from Ukraine emigrated from the Belgian port of Antwerp in 1911 and landed at St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. I had always had the impression that he arrived in the port of New York --- an assumption supported by the fact that he indeed ultimately *settled* in New York City and spent the rest of his life there and in the Bronx. It never occurred to me that he might have arrived in Canada first! And now, for my earlier message below. [Please note that I am neither an expert on immigration/passenger record research nor a professional genealogist or researcher. I am simply sharing information I gathered on my own in the course of researching my European ancestors from Germany, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine to the United States and Canada. Other than the general information presented below, I lack the additional knowledge or resources to answer individual questions or guide someone's personal research efforts. :-) ] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Russ wrote: > > I have a question I would like to ask. I would like to know if it was possible for people in the 1820's to 1830's to immigrate to the U.S. from Germany through Canada. I am having a hard time finding where my ancestors entered the U.S. I have sent requests to the National Archives to search the ships records for the major ports with no luck. I do know they left from La Harve, France. Does anyone know the major ports in Canada and how to go about checking them for ships lists? Thanks Russ ========================================================= Dear Russ & Baden-Wuerttemberg List Friends, To respond to Russ' above questions: 1. The following notation is copied from the National Archives of *Canada* Web site section at http://www.archives.ca/02/02020204_e.html (with regard to Canadian immigration records/passenger lists): "There are no comprehensive nominal lists of immigrants arriving in Canada prior to 1865. Until that year, shipping companies were not required by the government to retain their passenger manifests. Only a few lists have been located among our various collections. Our Miscellaneous Immigration Index is a nominal card index to some of those records and it is available for consultation in our Reference Room. It relates mostly to immigrants from the British Isles to Quebec and Ontario between the years 1801 and 1849." 2. The National Archives of Canada, which holds immigration, military and other records for Canada, has a Web site accessible at http://www.archives.ca/ . I have found it very helpful in getting some guidance in researching my Ukrainian emigrant maternal grandfather KALYTCHUK (who landed at St. John, New Brunswick in 1911, and temporarily settled in Manitoba province before later immigrating to the US). 3. There is also a related, helpful Web site of: Immigrants to Canada in the Nineteenth Century http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html 4. *Among the ports of eastern* Canada which received emigrants are Montreal, Québec, Halifax [Nova Scotia], St. John [New Brunswick], St. Johns [Newfoundland], and Prince Edward Island [PEI]. (This is not an exhaustive list, nor does it include ports of *western* Canada.) For more information on Canadian ports of entry used by immigrants from Europe, try a Google search or similar. 5. The correct spelling of the name of the French port from which Russ' ancestor[s] departed is LE HAVRE, rather than "La Harve." This common error is important to avoid, especially when doing a database or online search for information about the port and emigration from it. (It is also often referred to simply as "Havre," particularly by Europeans.) :-) Hope the foregoing is of some help! Warmest good wishes from your friendly "spelling policewoman," ;-) Carla HELLER, Los Angeles, California USA mscarlah@earthlink.net List Co-Administrator, ROOTSWEB'S Baden-Wuerttemberg Mailing List