Genealogy & Family History Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for expert genealogists and people interested in genealogy or family history. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
My great-grandfather wrote a diary about his leaving the Pale of Settlement in the end of the 19th century to England.
The diary, or at least part of it, can be read here.
I am trying to follow his path and get some genealogical data and historical references. You can see the work I started here.
Right now I am looking for immigration papers in to England, and any data I can search about him in England.
I Know he was a Jewish cabinet maker and part of the Machzikei hadath congregation.
Depending on how close to the end of the 19th century you are looking for, this may be one such database that Ancestry.com has assembled:
About England, Alien Arrivals, 1810-1811, 1826-1869
This data collection contains lists of aliens (non-British citizens) arriving in England between 1810 and 1869. The records come from the following National Archives collection series. These records were primarily created as a result of various acts passed by parliament to regulate immigrants and other incoming individuals.
- FO 83/21-22: Lists of aliens arriving at English ports, August 1810-May 1811; 2 volumes of original lists created under an act passed in 1793 “for establishing regulations respecting Aliens arriving at this Kingdom, or resident therein, in certain cases”
- HO 2: Certificates of alien arrivals, 1836-1852; 236 volumes of original certificates arranged by port of arrival
- HO 3: Returns of alien passengers, July 1836-December 1869 (with a gap from January 1861 to December 1866); returns made of alien passengers on ships arriving at British ports as required by the Aliens Act, beginning in 1836; formerly known as Lists of Immigrants; also includes some papers on the drafting of the Act, its administration, and proposals for its revision
- CUST 102/393-396 Accounts of aliens arriving at London (July-November 1826) and Gravesend (October 1826-August 1837); arranged by certificate of arrival number
Unfortunately, for later arrivals, like the "around 1890" period, the Inward Passenger Lists 1878-1960 at FamilySearch.org says (with my bolding):
Those immigrants who came by sea between 1878 and 1960 may appear in the Inward Passenger Lists at The National Archives (BT26 and BT27). This large class of records is arranged by port and date of arrival but is not complete until 1890. It does not contain details of immigrants who came from Europe or the Mediterranean area of from anywhere by air.
