Wyoming Emigration and Immigration

How to Find the Records
Wyoming, being entirely inland, has no seaports. Immigrants would have initially arrived at a port on the coast. To search those records, see United States Immigration Online Genealogy Records.

Online Resources

 * 1500s-1900s All U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s at Ancestry; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Wyoming; Also at MyHeritage; index only ($)
 * 1895-1956 United States, Border Crossings from Canada, 1895-1956 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Wyoming

Cultural Groups

 * 1920-1939 Germany, Bremen Emigration Lists, 1920-1939 at MyHeritage; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Wyoming
 * Germans Immigrating to the United States at MyHeritage; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Wyoming
 * Italians Immigrating to the United States at MyHeritage; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Wyoming
 * Russians Immigrating to the United States at MyHeritage; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Wyoming

Passport Records Online

 * 1795-1925 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1795-1925 - U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 Index and images, at Ancestry ($)

Offices to Contact
Although many records are included in the online records listed above, there are other records available through these archives and offices. For example, there are many minor ports that have not yet been digitized. There are also records for more recent time periods. For privacy reasons, some records can only be accessed after providing proof that your ancestor is now deceased.

U.S. Citizenship and and Immigration Services Genealogy Program
The USCIS Genealogy Program is a fee-for-service program that provides researchers with timely access to historical immigration and naturalization records of deceased immigrants. If the immigrant was born less than 100 years ago, you will also need to provide proof of his/her death.

Immigration Records Available

 * A-Files: Immigrant Files, (A-Files) are the individual alien case files, which became the official file for all immigration records created or consolidated since April 1, 1944.
 * Alien Registration Forms (AR-2s): Alien Registration Forms (Form AR-2) are copies of approximately 5.5 million Alien Registration Forms completed by all aliens age 14 and older, residing in or entering the United States between August 1, 1940 and March 31, 1944.
 * Registry Files:''' Registry Files are records, which document the creation of immigrant arrival records for persons who entered the United States prior to July 1, 1924, and for whom no arrival record could later be found.
 * Files:''' Visa Files are original arrival records of immigrants admitted for permanent residence under provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924.

Requesting a Record

 * Web Request Page allows you to request a records, pay fees, and upload supporting documents (proof of death).
 * Record Requests Frequently Asked Questions

Finding Town of Origin
Records in the countries emigrated from are kept on the local level. You must first identify the name of the town where your ancestors lived to access those records. If you do not yet know the name of the town of your ancestor's birth, there are well-known strategies for a thorough hunt for it.
 * U. S. Immigration Records: Finding the Town of Origin

Background
Until 1811, when fur traders first opened a trail through the area, Wyoming was the domain of the American Indians. Between 1825 and 1840, about 200 mountain men bartered with the Indians at rendezvous in the region.

In the 1840s and 1850s, many thousands of emigrants traveling the Oregon Trail to California, Utah, and other western states passed through the North Platte and Sweetwater valleys and South Pass in central Wyoming. In the 1860s, as Indian troubles increased in the north, many emigrants preferred the more southerly Overland Trail through Bridger Pass. Until the railroad came, very few emigrants stayed in Wyoming.

The discovery of gold in 1867 at South Pass brought many immigrants to western Wyoming. A greater stimulus to settlement was the building of the transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s. Many Irish and Mexican laborers and Civil War veterans helped build the railway. Settlers from the Midwest followed the railroad into Wyoming, and built Cheyenne, Laramie, and other towns along the route. In the 1870s and 1880s, cattlemen from Texas drove herds into northern Wyoming.

Many Idaho Latter-day Saints came into Star Valley in the 1870s and 1880s. There were Latter-day Saint colonists in the Big Horn Basin by 1895, but the main body of Latter-day Saint settlers came there as an organized group from Utah and Idaho in 1900. A helpful source of information on these settlers in the Big Horn Basin is:

Welch, Charles A. History of the Big Horn Basin. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1940. (Family History Library ).

A sizable number of Finns came to work the mines in Uinta and Sweetwater counties in the late 1880s. In 1895, a group of about 600 settlers came from Iowa and Illinois to homestead reclaimed land at a place now called Emblem, located near the Latter-day Saint colonies of the Big Horn Basin.

Today, most Wyoming residents are of northern European descent. There are small numbers of Italians in Rock Springs, Hispanic groups around Rock Springs and Cheyenne, and 2,000-3,000 Blacks, primarily in Cheyenne. Many Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Shoshoni Indians live on the Wind River Reservation of west-central Wyoming (see Indians of Wyoming).

There was no single port of entry common to overseas immigrants to Wyoming. The Family History Library and the National Archives have passenger lists or indexes for east-coast ports from about 1820 to 1940. More detailed information on immigration sources see United States Emigration and Immigration and Tracing Immigrant Origins.

The Oregon-California Trails Association is an educational organization that promotes the story of the westward migration to Wyoming, among other places. Their Paper Trail Online Database includes a personal name index to trail diaries, journals, reminiscences, autobiographies, newspaper articles, guidebooks and letters.

Immigration Records
Immigration refers to people coming into a country. Emigration refers to people leaving a country to go to another. Immigration records usually take the form of ship's passenger lists collected at the port of entry. See Online Resources.

Information in Passenger Lists

 * Before 1820 - Passenger lists before 1820 included name, departure information and arrival details. The names of wives and children were often not included.


 * 1820-1891 - Customs Passenger Lists between 1820 and 1891 asked for each immigrant’s name, their age, their sex, their occupation, and their country of origin, but not the city or town of origin.


 * 1891-1954 - Information given on passenger lists from 1891 to 1954 included:
 * name, age, sex,
 * nationality, occupation, marital status,
 * last residence, final destination in the U.S.,
 * whether they had been to the U.S. before (and if so, when, where and how long),
 * if joining a relative, who this person was, where they lived, and their relationship,
 * whether able to read and write,
 * whether in possession of a train ticket to their final destination, who paid for the passage,
 * amount of money the immigrant had in their possession,
 * whether the passenger had ever been in prison, a poorhouse, or in an institution for the insane,
 * whether the passenger was a polygamist,
 * and immigrant's state of health.


 * 1906-- - In 1906, the physical description and place of birth were included, and a year later, the name and address of the passenger’s closest living relative in the country of origin was included.

Information in Passports
Over the years, passports and passport applications contained different amounts of information about the passport applicant. The first passports that are available begin in 1795. These usually contained the individual's name, description of individual, and age. More information was required on later passport applications, such as:


 * Birthplace
 * Birth date
 * Naturalization information
 * Arrival information, if foreign born

Websites

 * Oregon-California Trails Association
 * Paper Trail Online Database