Irish Immigration to the U.S. through Canada

There is nothing more frustrating than knowing that your ancestor was from Ireland and you can’t find the port they immigrated through. After searching through records for the ports of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Portland Maine, New Orleans, Atlanta, and San Francisco and finding no mention of your ancestor, it is time to turn to our friends up north. Passageway to Canada was less expensive, and from Canada, immigrants made their way to the U.S.

Grosse Ile, City of Quebec, and Montreal in Province of Quebec are the main ports used by the Irish for immigration to Canada. The ports of embarkation and ports of call included Liverpool, Belfast, Waterford, Cork, Dublin, Southampton, Bristol, and London. Geni has some great ports of emigration passenger lists. (www.geni.com/projects/Irish-emigrants-ports-of-emigration-ships-and-passengerlists/8514)

FamilySearch Wiki has an informative article “Finding an Irish Ancestor Using United States Records,” that states how immigration from Canada occurred.

“From 1894, Canadian steamship and railroads advertised to potential immigrants to the United States to instead sail into Canadian ports, and then gain entry through U.S. ports of entries into the United States. In 1894 passenger lists were created to document the movements of all immigrants from Canada into the United States. Therefore, for example, from this time, forward the Port of St Albans, Vermont ship lists become a valuable record source for tracing some immigrants to the United States but who came through Canadian ports of entry first, and then came through St Albans, in order to migrate to their final destination in the United States.”

It took over six weeks to make the trip to Canada. These “Coffin Ships” were breeding grounds for many diseases. The island of Grosse Ile became the quarantine island. It is estimated that almost 5,000 Irish died and are buried at Grosse Ile making it the largest Irish burial ground outside of Ireland. The records for Grosse Ile, located at the Library and Archives Canada, not only have death records, but there are baptisms, births, and marriage records for the Irish immigrants. When you go to the Library and Archives Canada website the search button is on the top left and says Search:Database. (www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/history-ethnic-cultural/Pages/irish.aspx) Another website to check-out is Stevemorse.org as it has Canadian Border Crossings (1895-1956) and Canadian Passenger Lists (1865-1935) that may be helpful. May your research be blessed with a bit of Irish luck.