France Emigration and Immigration

Online Resources

 * 1673-1728 Burgers : 1673-1728 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only - refugees from France to the Netherlands
 * 1792-1800 Emigrés, dossiers individuels, 1792-1800 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only - Files on emigrants from Rhode, France
 * 1817-1866 Registres des émigrés, 1817-1866 Alsace emigration index
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of France
 * 1904-1914 Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of France
 * 1921-1939 Reseñas de pasaportes de varios consulados, 1921-1939 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only - includes those in France
 * 1946 Israel, Jewish Immigrants of the "Biria", 1946 sailing from Sete France, Ancestry, ($)
 * 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
 * Franske emigranter i Danmark (French Emigrants in Denmark
 * Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild Choose a volume and then choose France under "Listed by Port of Departure" or "Listed by Port of Arrival".

Le Havre Passenger Index
A French genealogical society has discovered a 100-year-old card file of 45,000 passengers, 25,000 sailors, and 5,000 retirees at Le Havre from 1780 to 1840. The source of the index is uncertain and it is difficult to determine how comprehensive it is. It does not correspond to the unindexed lists mentioned above. The passenger cards usually show name, maiden surname of the spouse (including cross references), birth date or age, birthplace, parents, date and place of embarkation and debarkation, and, for French ships, the vessel's name.

Researchers may send written inquiries to learn if a relative is indexed. The society can search only for passengers between 1780 and 1840, and they will search only for a specific name. They will not respond to vague requests to search for anyone with a certain surname.

Send the correctly spelled given name and surname of the passenger, a self-addressed, stamped envelope, stating your email address on the cover letter, to—

Liste de passagers Groupement Généalogique du Havre et de Seine-Maritime B.P. 80 76050 Le Havre Cedex FRANCE Email:gghsm@wanadoo.fr Telephone:02.35.44.94.40

Emigration and Immigration
Emigration and immigration records list the names of people leaving (emigration) or coming into (immigration) France. These lists are usually found as permissions to emigrate; records of passports issued, including passports for the interior; records of border crossings; and lists of prisoners deported. The information in these records may include the name of the emigrant, age, occupation; usually include the place of origin and destination; and sometimes include the reason for leaving. These sources can be very valuable in helping you determine where in France your ancestor came from. French emigration records are very incomplete and are not usually indexed.

In addition to their usefulness in determining where an emigrant lived in the nation before leaving, these records can help you construct family groups. If you don't find your ancestor, you may find emigration information about neighbors of your ancestor. People who lived near each other in France often settled together in the nation where they emigrated to.

Finding the Town of Origin in France
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in France, see France Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Emigration from France
Significant numbers of emigrants left France during the following periods: In the Western Hemisphere, the main communities of French ancestry are found in the United States, Canada and Argentina. Sizeable groups are also found in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Australia.
 * 1538 to 1685 : Protestants (Huguenots) flee religious persecutions in France.
 * 1600s to 1700s French colonization, especially in the Americas, was prominent in the late 17th and 18th centuries.
 * 1632 to 1713 : French settle Quebec and Acadia (Canada).
 * 1722 : Alsatian colonies established in the Holy Roman Empire (Austria-Hungary).
 * 1764 to 1786 : Alsatians colonize Russia, Ukraine, and Banat.
 * 1785:  Some exiled Acadians shipped from France to Louisiana.
 * 1789 to 1791 : About 500,000 refugees flee the French Revolution for neighboring nations and the Americas. About half later returned.
 * 1804 to 1832 : Additional Alsatians emigrate to Ukraine, Bessarabia, and Banat.
 * 1815 to 1817 : Political turmoil after the fall of Napoleon leads to a wave of French emigration to neighboring countries and the Americas.
 * 1821-1920 Around 121,000 Basques and Bearnese people from Basses-Pyrénées emigrated to America—more than 108,000 from 1835 to 1901.
 * 1830 to 1962 : French colonize Algeria (Africa).
 * 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s : Agents go from town to town recruiting emigrants, mostly in Alsace-Lorraine. Some went to America, others to Russia.
 * 1871 : There is a wave of French emigrants, largely to North America.

French Colonial Records
The nationales d'outre-mer (ANOM--France Overseas Archives), Instruments de recherche en ligne (Online Finding Aids) has records of births, marriages, and deaths of French citizens in the colonies of France and countries throughout the world''':
 * "Created in June 1776 by a royal edict, the Depot of public papers of the colonies, more commonly known as the DPPC, was responsible for keeping at the level of the central administration in the form of copies the most important documents drawn up in the colonies, which could guarantee the human rights and state security.
 * The civil status, kept on site in duplicate as in mainland France (the original for the municipality of birth, the copy for the tribunal de grande instance) was therefore also kept in the form of a third copy (triplicate) by this institution. It is this copy that the Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer keeps and puts online."

Records of French Emigrants in Their Destination Nations
Emigrants from France in the seventeenth and eighteenth century settled in Canada, Pennsylvania, Russia, the Banat, and other areas. Huguenot emigrants settled in the Antilles, Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the British Isles, the United States, South Africa, Italy, and other areas. The French emigrants from Alsace-Lorraine province in the nineteenth century settled in the United States (Louisiana and Texas), Algeria, New Caledonia, Russia, South America, and other areas.

Acadia and Quebec (Canada)
In 1755, England drove French settlers in Acadia (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and Maine) out of their settlements to France, England, and English colonies in America. In 1785, Spain transported seven shiploads of Acadian exiles to Louisiana where Acadians were called Cajuns. Several French Canadian sources mention the French home parish of an individual or his parents, for example:
 * Loiselle card index to many marriages of the province of Quebec and adjacent areas
 * Supplement to Loiselle card index to many marriages of the province of Quebec and adjacent areas
 * 1670-1964 - "Index to Marriages of Québec and Adjacent Areas 1670–1964"
 * Fichier Origine (Original File) Database, index and images.
 * Tanguay's Genealogical Dictionary (Dictionnaire Genealogique Des Familles Canadiennes), e-book. In French but easy to decipher. Also at Ancestry.com, index and images, ($)
 * Canada Emigration and Immigration – Wiki page with additional larger databases which also include French immigrants

United States Online Sources

 * United States Emigration and Immigration – Wiki page with additional larger databases which also include French immigrants
 * 1727-1776 Namen von Einwanderern in Pennsylvanien aus Deutschland, der Schweiz, Holland, Frankreich u. a. St. von 1727 bis 1776 (Names of immigrants in Pennsylvania from Germany, Switzerland, Holland, France and other countries from 1727 to 1776) Ancestry ($), index and images
 * Also free at FamilySearch Books, e-book

United States Background

 * Some Franco-Americans arrived prior to the founding of the United States, settling in places like the Midwest, Louisiana or Northern New England. Twenty-three of the Contiguous United States were colonized in part by French pioneers or French Canadians, including settlements such as Iowa (Des Moines), Missouri (St. Louis), Kentucky (Louisville) and Michigan (Detroit), among others. While found throughout the country, today Franco-Americans are most numerous in New England, northern New York, the Midwest and Louisiana. Often, Franco-Americans are identified more specifically as being of French Canadians, Cajuns or Louisiana Creole descent.
 * From the beginning of the 17th century, French Canadians explored and traveled to the region with their coureur de bois and explorers. The French Canadians set up a number of villages along the waterways, including Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; La Baye, Wisconsin; Cahokia, Illinois; Kaskaskia, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan; Saint Ignace, Michigan; Vincennes, Indiana; St. Paul, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; and Sainte Genevieve, Missouri.
 * In the 17th and early 18th centuries, there was an influx of a few thousand Huguenots, who were Calvinist refugees fleeing religious persecution following the issuance of the 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau by Louis XIV of the Kingdom of France.
 * Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. Their ancestors settled Acadia, in what is now the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and part of Maine in the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1755, the British Army forced the Acadians to either swear an oath of loyalty to the British Crown or face expulsion. Some four thousand managed to make the long trek to Louisiana, where they began a new life.

Russia Online Records

 * Registres de l'eglise réformée d'Chabag (Bessarabie), 1872-1893 Family books for the French Evangelical-Reformed church at Schabo-Possad (Chabag), Bessarabia, Russia.
 * Metrical books, 1828-1900, parish registers, in German--Many emigrants from Alsace-Lorraine spoke German.
 * Odessa3: Germans from Russia Some emigrants from Alsace-Lorraine are included in Germans from Russia records.

Russia Background

 * In 1763, Catherine the Great of Russia offered free land, no taxes for 30 years, freedom of religion, and other incentives to west Europeans to settle her vast, sparsely populated domain. Dozens of German and French (Alsatian) colonies were established and grew until World War I.
 * A French Protestant colony was established at Schabo in Bessarabia.
 * Since many Alsatians (people in Alsace-Lorraine, France) spoke more German than French, they were often called Germans when they emigrated to other nations. For example, some of the "Germans from Russia" were actually from Alsace-Lorraine, instead of from Germany. See the Germany Emigration and Immigration and the Germans from Russia Wiki articles for important emigration records that include German-speaking Alsatians of France.
 * Many Russian Alsatians moved to the United States, Canada, or South America, beginning in 1874.

Southeast Europe
Starting in 1722, the Holy Roman emperors and Austro-Hungarian monarchs encouraged German and Alsatian settlement in their lands, especially along the devastated border with the Turks. Colonies developed in what later became Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Following World War II many settlers moved to the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and other nations.

Immigration into France

 * 1618-1648. Many Swiss emigrants come into Alsace-Lorraine as a result of the Thirty Years War.
 * 1755-1763. Acadians (French-Canadians) were exiled. Many return to France.
 * 1848-1850. German revolutionaries took refuge in Bas-Rhin.
 * 1831-1870. Polish refugees settled in Bas-Rhin.
 * 1915-1930. Armenian refugees settled largely in Marseilles
 * France's population dynamics began to change in the middle of the 19th century, as France joined the Industrial Revolution. The pace of industrial growth attracted millions of European immigrants over the next century, with especially large numbers arriving from Poland, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and Spain.
 * In the wake of the First World War, in which France suffered six million casualties, significant numbers of workers from French colonies came. By 1930, the Paris region alone had a North African Muslim population of 70,000.
 * Right after the Second World War, immigration to France significantly increased. During the period of reconstruction, France lacked labor, and as a result, the French government was eager to recruit immigrants coming from all over Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.
 * A wave of Vietnamese migrated to the country after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords, which granted Vietnam its independence from France in 1954. These migrants consisted of those who were loyal to the colonial government and those married to French colonists. Following the partition of Vietnam, students and professionals from South Vietnam continued to arrive in France. Although many initially returned to the country after a few years, as the Vietnam War situation worsened, a majority decided to remain in France and brought their families over as well.
 * This period also saw a significant wave of immigrants from Algeria. As the Algerian War started in 1954, there were already 200,000 Algerian immigrants in France. After the war, after Algeria gained its independence, the number of Algerian immigrants started to increase drastically. From 1962 to 1975, the Algerian immigrant population increased from 350,000 to 700,000.
 * Additionally, the number of Pakistani and Japanese immigrants also increased during this period.
 * There was also a great number of students and workers from former French colonies in Africa.
 * During the 1970s, France simultaneously faced economic crisis and allowed immigrants (mostly from the Muslim world) to permanently settle in France with their families and to acquire French citizenship. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of Muslims, especially to the larger cities, living in subsidized public housing and suffering from very high unemployment rates. Alongside this, France renounced its policy of assimilation, instead pursuing a policy of integration.

Armenia Online Sources

 * List of Armenian refugees living at Camp Oddo, Marseille, 1922
 * Passport Nansen: list of Armenians from Marseille and its region having applied (1926-1946)
 * List of Baptismal Certificates - Armenian Prelature of the South of France

Armenia Background
The modern Armenian diaspora was formed largely after World War I as a result of the Armenian Genocide.The Armenian Genocide (other names) was the systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenians from Anatolia and adjoining regions by the Ottoman Empire. Although many Armenians perished during the Armenian Genocide, some of the Armenians who managed to escape, established themselves in various parts of the world. There are an estimated 300,000 to 600,000 people of Armenian descent in France today.
 * List of Armenian refugees living at Camp Oddo, Marseille, 1922
 * Passport Nansen: list of Armenians from Marseille and its region having applied (1926-1946)
 * List of Baptismal Certificates - Armenian Prelature of the South of France

Published Emigration Records
Lists of emigrants are often published. These usually focus on the emigrants from one town, department, or region. An Dozens of other published emigrant lists from many areas of France can be identified in the Place search of the FamilySearch Catalog under the town, department, province, or region from which the emigrants came.