California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959

This database is an index to passenger and crew lists of ships and some airplanes arriving in California between 1882 and 1959. In addition, the names found in the index are linked to actual images of the passenger and crew lists, copied from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm (see Source Information for specific microfilm series and roll information).

Passengers who were en route to their final destinations were headed either to other U.S. ports, or to foreign ports, such as Yokohama, Japan. Ports of embarkations for these passengers varied, but included ports in South America, the Panama Canal Zone, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Hawaii, and other U.S. ports.

A variety of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) forms were used to record information about the passengers and crew members. Different forms could be used depending on whether the individual was a passenger on a plane, passenger on a vessel, crew member, citizen, alien, etc. Forms may have simply changed over time as well. Due to the variety of forms, the amount of information available for an individual in this database will vary according to the form used and the questions asked on it. The type of information that is may be contained in this database includes:

• Name


• Age


• Birth date


• Birth place


• Gender


• Ethnicity/nationality


• Last residence


• Vessel or airline name


• Port of departure


• Port of arrival


• Date of arrival (or if unknown, date shore leave was granted or date of departure from the arrival port)

Additional information about an individual may be recorded on the original document and may be obtained by viewing the corresponding image. Many of these items may be used to search the index in the search template above.

Many passenger list forms, especially those from the twentieth century, were two pages long. Be sure to click the "Previous" and "Next" buttons in order to see all the images pertaining to a particular manifest.

It is important to note that the port of departure listed on these passenger lists is not always the original port of departure for these individuals. A ship could make several voyages throughout the year, making several stops along way. Oft times the port of departure found on these lists is the most recent port the ship was located at prior to arriving at the port of San Francisco. Therefore, if your ancestors emigrated to the U.S. from Australia, they could be found on a passenger list coming from Honolulu, Hawaii (if, in this case, the ship left from Sydney, Australia then continued on to Honolulu, Hawaii before arriving in San Francisco).

The microcopies of the passenger lists are arranged chronologically by arrival date of vessel or airplane. If you do not wish to search this database using the search template, the images may be browsed following the chronological arrangement. To browse the images first select the “Year” in which you would like to search, followed by the “Month”, and finally the “Ship Name”.

To learn about researching in passenger records consult John P. Colletta’s book, They Came In Ships (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1993).

Some of the above information was taken from: