Update to What's Available in Ships Passenger Lists to Canada Before 1865

There are no comprehensive lists of immigrants arriving in Canada prior to 1865. Until that year, shipping companies were not required by the government to keep their passenger manifests.

Immigration Projects Online which may help you in your search for an immigrant ancestors in this challenging time period are:

* Return of Irish Catholic ( Counties Wexford & Carlow) families who Sailed from New Ross to Upper Eastern Canada in 1817
* Ships passenger lists for Peter Robinson Settlers sailing 1825 Ireland to Canada
* St. Lawrence Steamboat Co. Passenger Records 1819-1836
* Alms House Admission Foreigners & Nativity Records with Ships Names 1819 - 1840 (New York City, New York) includes individuals who had sailed into Canada first
* The Hawke Papers, letterbooks of Chief Emigrant Agent Anthony B. Hawke are available at the Archives of Ontario from 1831 to 1892. Search the searchable database 1865 - 1883
* Passenger Books of J & J Cooke, Shipping Agents with sailings from Londonderry Ireland to Quebec and St. John New Brunswick from 1847 to 1871.
* People from the Fitzwilliam estate in Ireland who settled in Ontario, 1847-1855 Settlement in East half of Ontario
* A Story of Emigration: Southwest Wicklow (Ireland) to Ontario 1840s Settlement in West half of Ontario
* Names of Emigrants from the 1845-1847 Records of James Allison, Emigrant Agent at Montreal
* Filling in the Gaps: Partial Ships Passenger Lists 1850-1855 Names of Individuals in the New York Almshouse who arrived in Canada before going on to New York (includes name of ship, date of arrival and more)
* Return of Emigrants Landed at the Port of Kingston Ontario, Canada 1861-1882 gives the final destination of the individuals, their date of arrival at Kingston and more.
* Petworth Immigrants 1832-1837
* Emigrants from England in New York City Almshouse 1818-1830 - 254 names of English immigrants to Canada & USA including the name of the ship they sailed on
* Irish Immigrants at Grosse-Île - 33,026 immigrants whose names appear in surviving records of the Grosse-Île Quarantine Station between 1832 and 1937.
* Search most ships lists on the Internet going to
Canada and the online InGeneas databases for immigration to Canada 1800s
* Saint John New Brunswick Customs House Passenger Lists 1815, 1832, 1833-1834 & 1837-1838 - the only known surviving lists from this time period. Most of the Customs House records were lost in 1877 in the Great Fire of Saint John. Famine lists from 1845-1850 appear also to have been lost.
* Colonial Archives Database contains over 70,000 detailed descriptions of documents in the archival collection mainly of the British and French colonial periods.
* Index to Miscellaneous Immigrants to Canada Before 1865 A number of lists have been indexed by name in this database. Many of the records relate to immigrants from the British Isles to Quebec and Ontario, but there are also references to settlers in other provinces. The database also includes other types of records such as declarations of aliens and names of some Irish orphans.