Passenger lists of vessels arriving at Baltimore, 1820-1948 ; Quarterly abstracts of passenger lists of vessels arriving at Baltimore, 1820-1869 : NARA M255, T844 and M596

Notes

Customs passenger lists of Baltimore were kept beginning in January 1820, but most of the early lists are missing and were reportedly destroyed by a fire. The following records are included: 1. Surviving U.S. Customs passenger lists from 1 January 1840 to 28 December 1891. 2. Baltimore City lists for 4 September 1833 to 13 June 1866 (with some gaps). During these years, ship masters were required to submit copies of their passenger lists to the Mayor of Baltimore. These city lists partially replace the missing original lists. 3. Cargo manifests from 2 September 1820 to 30 March 1821 and 19 August 1832.

The Quarterly abstracts of Baltimore passenger lists were first compiled in 1820. Beginning in 1820, U.S. Customs collectors were required to send quarterly copies of the customs lists to the U.S. Secretary of State who published transcripts for Congress. These quarterly abstracts or copies give the quarter-year of an individual's arrival and sometimes the port of embarkation. Passengers' given names were usually shortened to the initial letter, but otherwise the information is the same as that found in the original lists. The abstracts should only be used when the original list is missing. The abstracts also have many gaps and some years are missing. The Library has the abstracts for the following years: January 1820 to December 1845 July 1848 to September 1850 March 1857 to June 1869.

The federal records are supplemented by the "city lists" which were submitted to the mayor of Baltimore according to state law between 1833-1866.

"The manifests were filmed as they appeared in bound volumes. Date spans may overlap.".

For Soundex indexes see: United States. Bureau of Customs. Index to passenger lists of vessels arriving at Baltimore, 1820-1897 (Federal passenger lists) which covers mainly 1832-1897 and Index to passenger lists of vessels arriving at Baltimore, 1833-1866 (city passenger lists) which covers the "city lists" only.

Some volumes have a list and the number of pages for each ship in the volume.

Microfilm of original records at The National Archives in Washington, District of Columbia.

View a digital version of Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists.

Subjects

Locality Subjects

Film/Digital Notes