The following is a repeat of information I posted July 2006 to the Advanced Research List. Others also posted to this subject so you might want to look at the July Archives for that RootsWeb list. This posting was in response to a specific inquiry but hope it helps. Prior to 1820 there was NO requirement that non-U.S. citizen passengers be reported to anyone however there are many passenger lists that have survived. Karen >From 1820 to 1892 ALL ships arriving in the U.S. were required to submit lists of ALL non-U.S. citizen passengers and these lists were turned over to U. S. Customs. It didn't matter what port they arrived at or even if they had previously entered this country, just that they were not a citizen. Some of my ancestors made more than one trip back and forth between England and New Orleans in the 1840s and all of those entries are recorded and stored at the National Archives. Some of the lists have been published privately and are available in books at libraries as well as from some of the on-line services like Ancestry.com. I would imagine that LDS has the lists available on microfilm but I haven't tried that. The Ships's Passenger lists I have seen do not reflect whether or not the person(s) intended to stay and apply for citizenship. They are just records of their arrival and have varying amounts of information. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) didn't begin creating their own records until 1892. NARA should have INS records for Portland beginning 1893. So it would appear that any non-citizen arriving before 1893 would have been reported but to Customs, not INS. After 1893 it would have been INS. And by the way, INS no longer exists. It was absorbed by Homeland Security and replaced in 2003 with United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Thanks for the info, Karen, I will check July Rootsweb ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen" <gtskjs@mvn.net> To: <white@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 3:29 PM Subject: Re: [WHITE] Points of entry records before Castle Garden? > The following is a repeat of information I posted July 2006 to the > Advanced > Research List. Others also posted to this subject so you might want to > look > at the July Archives for that RootsWeb list. This posting was in response > to a specific inquiry but hope it helps. Prior to 1820 there was NO > requirement that non-U.S. citizen passengers be reported to anyone however > there are many passenger lists that have survived. > > Karen >