Netherlands Passenger Lists Holland-America Line - FamilySearch Historical Records

Foreign Language Title
This section of the article is incomplete. You can help FamilySearch Wiki by supplying a translation of the title in Dutch here.

Collection Time Period
This collection of passenger lists covers the years 1900-1974.

Record Description
Passenger lists for the Holland-America Line (Holland Amerika Lijn), which transported numerous refugees from war-torn Europe to the United States prior to 1941. The passenger lists show the name of the ship, its destination, and the date it left port. The passenger's name is included along with various details of passage arrangements, fees, etc. Passenger lists are available for the following range of dates: 3 May 1900 through 14 October 1974. Original records are available through the Rotterdam City Archive (Gemeentearchief te Rotterdam), Netherlands. This collection is being published as images become available. The text is handwritten in Dutch; in a ledger type register. Passengers are listed by passage contract number.

Record Content
Key genealogical facts found in passenger lists may include:


 * Passage contract number
 * Name of passenger
 * Number of persons traveling together
 * Departure and destination places
 * Date of departure
 * Price of passage
 * Ship name
 * Passenger’s cabin class

How to Use the Records
When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information given. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details and lead you to other records about your ancestors. Add this new information to your records of each family. For example, you can use passenger lists to:


 * Learn an immigrant’s place of origin
 * Confirm their date of arrival
 * Learn foreign and “Americanized” names
 * Find records in his or her country of origin such as emigrations, port records, or ship’s manifests.

You may also find these tips helpful:


 * If your ancestor had a common name, be sure to look at all the entries for a name before you decide which is correct.
 * Continue to search the passenger lists to identify siblings, parents, and other relatives in the same or other generations who may have immigrated at the same time.
 * If your ancestor has an uncommon surname, you may want to obtain the passenger list of every person who shares your ancestor’s surname if they lived in the same county or nearby. You may not know how or if they are related, but the information could lead you to more information about your own ancestors.

If you do not find the name you are looking for, try the following:


 * Check for variant spellings. Realize that the indexes may contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings and misinterpretations.
 * Try a different index if there is one for the years needed. You may also need to search the passenger lists year by year.
 * Search the indexes of other port cities.

Record History
Passenger lists from the voyages of the Holland-America Line, a Steamship Company of the Netherlands that covered the transatlantic routes mainly between the ports of Rotterdam and New York, and occasionally calling on the ports of Boulogne-sur-mer, Plymouth, Southampton, Boston and Halifax. The names of the vessels were: Potsdam, Rotterdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, Statendam, Ryndam, Veendam, and Volendam.

Why This Record Was Created
It was necessary to keep a record of all the passengers boarding on to the company’s different steamships traveling from the Netherlands to North America.

Record Reliability
The data in these records may be reliable as far as the person that was giving the information; the spelling depended on the recorder.

Related Websites
Gjenvick-Gjonvik Archives

You can help FamilySearch Wiki by supplying links to other related websites here.

Related Wiki Articles
Netherlands Emigration and Immigration.

The Netherlands

Citing FamilySearch Historical Collections
When you copy information from a record, you should also list where you found the information. This will help you or others to find the record again. It is also good to keep track of records where you did not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records.

A suggested format for keeping track of records that you have searched is found in the Wiki Article: How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.

Examples of Source Citations for a Record in This Collection

 * United States. Bureau of the Census. 12th census, 1900, digital images, From FamilySearch Internet (www.familysearch.org: September 29, 2006), Arizona Territory, Maricopa, Township 1, East Gila, Salt River Base and Meridian; sheet 9B, line 71.
 * Mexico, Distrito Federal, Catholic Church Records, 1886-1933, digital images, from FamilySearch Internet (www.familysearch.org: April 22, 2010), Baptism of Adolfo Fernandez Jimenez, 1 Feb. 1910, San Pedro Apóstol, Cuahimalpa, Distrito Federal, Mexico, film number 0227023.

Sources of Information for This Collection
Netherlands. Holland America Steamship Line. Passenger Lists 1900-1974. Rotterdam City Archive (Gemeentearchief te Rotterdam), Netherlands.

The suggested format for citing FamilySearch Historical Collections is found in the following article: How to Create Source Citations for FamilySearch Historical Records Collections