Bahamas Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

 * 1817-1834 Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1822-1834 (1817-1834 for Bahamas), at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
 * 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * British Civil Service Evidence Of Age, Bahamas, index ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Bahamas, index and images, ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Bahamas, index and images, ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Bahamas, index and images, ($)

National Archives
Department of Archives Mackey St, Nassau SS 6341, Bahamas

Mailing Address: P.O. Box SS-6341 Nassau, N.P., Bahamas

Telephone: (242) 393-2175/393-2855 FAX: (242) 393-2855 Email: doarcustomerservice@bahamas.gov.bs
 * Website
 * Looking Back: A Genealogical Guide
 * Slave Records: Slave Registers, 1821-1834; Register of Freed Slaves, 1740-1834; Compensation Records, 1834.
 * Contract Labour Records, 1940-1966: Contract agricultural laborers recruited to work in Florida and the adjacent states. The files contain a wealth of information: name, address, date and place of birth, nationality, settlement, physical description, parents' names, children and spouses names.
 * Naturalizations, 1861-1930.

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

Bahamas Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.
 * The Bahama Islands were inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the 'New World' in 1492. Later, the Spanish shipped the native Lucayans to and enslaved them on Hispaniola, after which the Bahama islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648.
 * In 1648, the first English settlers arrived on the islands. Known as the Eleutherian Adventurers. They migrated from Bermuda seeking greater religious freedom. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named 'Eleuthera', Greek for 'freedom'. They later settled New Providence, naming it Sayle's Island. Life proved harder than envisaged however, and many chose to return to Bermuda. To survive, the remaining settlers salvaged goods from wrecks.
 * The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy.
 * After US independence, the British resettled some 7,300 Loyalists with their African slaves in The Bahamas, including 2,000 from New York and at least 1,033 European, 2,214 African ancestrals and a few Native American Creeks from East Florida. Most of the refugees resettled from New York had fled from other colonies, including West Florida, which the Spanish captured during the war. The government granted land to the planters to help compensate for losses on the continent.
 * The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in The Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Subsequently, The Bahamas became a haven for freed African slaves.
 * Africans liberated from illegal slave ships were resettled on the islands by the Royal Navy.
 * Some North American slaves and Seminoles escaped to The Bahamas from Florida. Bahamians were even known to recognize the freedom of enslaved people carried by the ships of other nations which reached The Bahamas.
 * Today Afro-Bahamians make up 90% of the population of 332,634.
 * From 1940-1966, contract agricultural laborers recruited to work in Florida and the adjacent states.