Mississippi Emigration and Immigration

Online Resources

 * 1500s-1900s All U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s at Ancestry; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Mississippi; Also at MyHeritage; index only ($)
 * 1895-1956 United States, Border Crossings from Canada, 1895-1956 at MyHeritge; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Mississippi
 * 1903-1935: at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index and images
 * 1920-1939 Germany, Bremen Emigration Lists, 1920-1939 at MyHeritge; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Mississippi
 * Germans Immigrating to the United States at MyHeritge; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Mississippi
 * Italians Immigrating to the United States at MyHeritge; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Mississippi
 * Russians Immigrating to the United States at MyHeritage; index only ($); includes those with Destination of Mississippi

Background

 * The earliest European settlers came by ship to the Gulf Coast.
 * Most pre-statehood settlers of Mississippi came from the older Southern states along the Atlantic seaboard. Most of them came overland via the Natchez Trace, which ran from Memphis, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi. Others came from Athens, Georgia and traveled westward through the Tombigbee River settlements of Alabama.
 * Some came from New England and a few colonial French families settled in the Biloxi area.
 * Most of the settlers, however, were of Ulster Scottish, English, and northern European ancestry.
 * Blacks outnumbered whites in Mississippi from the middle of the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth.

Helpful studies of Mississippi history, genealogy, and immigration are found in Cyril Edward Cain, Four Centuries on the Pascagoula, Two Volumes. (State College, Mississippi: C.E. Cain, 1953-1962;.