Discover your inside story with AncestryDNA®

March 12, 2003

Ships Passenger Lists to Canada After 1865

Unfortunately the records of ships passenger lists to Canada before 1925 are not indexed. To find a passenger you will need to know an exact date of arrival.

There is no easy way to search Canadian arrival records for this unindexed period other than reading microfilm

The National Archives of Canada (NAC) holds immigration records from 1865 to 1935.

Ships are on the reel, in order of arrival. You can borrow this reel on Inter Library Loan [ILL]. You can find the details at this URL

http://www.genealogy.gc.ca/10/1008_e.html

You are also able to ILL free of charge, from Ottawa, to libraries in the US, and outside North America. The NAC will allow your Library to borrow up to six microfilms on your behalf, per request.

If you want to order filmed passenger lists (remember they aren't indexed!), a list of NAC microfilm numbers for passenger lists to Canada 1865-1922 can be found at

http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/filmnos_can1865.shtml

If you want to try your luck searching transcribed ships passenger lists online, passenger lists for Ships to Canada after 1865 are freely available at

http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/tocanp05.shtml

There are search engines to search online free databases on multiple websites for ships to Canada at

http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/search_shipscanada.shtml