Documents & Records

Passenger Lists

Basics

Few passenger lists are available for Canadian ports for the pre-1865 period. After 1865 ships' masters were required to prepare a manifesto listing all families and submit it to port authorities.

Large numbers of Chinese passengers arrived in British Columbia by ship and are recorded in passenger lists for Vancouver, Victoria and other Pacific ports. Records for B.C. ports begin only in 1905, whereas for eastern ports, they date back much earlier.

Information collected on passenger lists varied over the years. The list below corresponds to column headings from the passenger list for the S.S. Africa Maru which arrived at Victoria on December 30, 1918.

No. of Passengers
No. of S.S. Contract Ticket
Amount of Cash in $
Name in Full
Age of Adults - Male / Female
Children Under 14 Years - Male / Female
Married, Single or Widowed
Have You Ever Been in Canada Before
If So - When / Where / How Long
Do You Intend to Permanently Reside in Canada
Are You Able to Read
Are You Able to Write

Country of Birth
Race of People
Destination - Post Office / Province
What Was Your Occupation in the Country From Which You Came?
What is Your Intended Occupation in Canada
Have You Every Worked as Farmer, Farm Labourer, Gardener, Stableman, Carter, Ry. Surfaceman, Navvy or Miner?
If So - Which / How Long / When
Religious Denomination
Travelled Inland on
Initials of Civil Examiner

Finding the Records

Passenger lists are arranged by port and are in chronological order. Very little indexing of Canadian passenger lists has been undertaken, and no West Coast records have been indexed.

It is much easier to locate an individual in a passenger list if you know the date and name of the ship on which they arrived. This information appears on the head tax certificate issued to new Chinese immigrants. Note, however, that the port at which the immigrant disembarked and the head tax certificate was issued was not necessarily the port at which the ship initially landed. For example, if a ship from Asia first docked at Victoria, but the passenger remained on board and continued on to Vancouver, his name may be on passenger lists for Victoria even though his head tax certificate (and corresponding record in the General Register of Chinese Immigration) indicates that he arrived at Vancouver.

At the Vancouver Public Library

A full name index to Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 is available on the Ancestry Library Edition electronic database. Links to digital images of original records are provided. The database includes arrivals at various Canadian ports and a few eastern U.S. ports. Free access to Ancestry Library Edition is available at all Vancouver Public Library locations. Remote access from home is not available.

The Vancouver Public Library also owns microfilm copies of passenger lists for Vancouver, Victoria and Pacific ports covering the period from 1905-1922. There are 27 reels for Victoria and Pacific ports and 15 reels for Vancouver. Dates covered by each reel are listed below. Detailed film notes identifying ships carrying Chinese passengers are available for some dates. See Ships From China to Canada's West Coast.

Victoria and Pacific Ports

Microfilm	Starts with:	Ends with:
T-509	19 April 1905	28 July 1905
T-510	28 July 1905	18 April 1906
T-511	18 April 1906	21 July 1907
T-512	21 July 1907	14 September 1908
T-4861	? September 1908	23 June 1909
T-4862	3 July 1909	15 May 1910
T-4863	24 May 1910	21 January 1911
T-4864	21 January 1911	30 August 1911
T-4865	3 September 1911	6 June 1912
T-4866	7 June 1912	5 January 1913
T-4867	5 January 1913	19 August 1913
T-4868	19 August 1913	1 May 1914
T-4869	2 May 1914	21 March 1915
T-4870	21 March 1915	8 April 1916
T-4871	8 April 1916	6 December 1916
T-4872	6 December 1916	2 October 1917
T-4873	2 October 1917	11 June 1918
T-4874	11 June 1918	4 February 1919
T-14872	4 February 1919	28 July 1919
T-14873	29 July 1919	19 February 1920
T-14874	19 February 1920	22 May 1920
T-14875	22 May 1920	4 August 1920
T-14876	4 August 1920	21 October 1920
T-14877	21 October 1920	31 January 1921
T-14878	1 February 1921	13 May 1921
T-14879	13 May 1921	13 August 1921
T-14880	13 August 1921	30 September 1922

Vancouver

Microfilm	Starts with:	Ends with:
T-515	4 January 1905	8 December 1906
T-516	7 January 1907	12 June 1909
T-4581	12 June 1909	28 August 1910
T-4852	28 August 1910	9 October 1911
T-4853	15 October 1911	29 December 1912
T-4854	5 January 1913	8 January 1914
T-4855	8 January 1914	28 June 1915
T-4856	2 July 1915	2 October 1916
T-4857	14 October 1916	15 October 1917
T-4858	27 October 1917	25 August 1918
T-4859	25 August 1918	30 May 1919
T-14867	11 June 1919	2 February 1920
T-14868	7 February 1920	3 July 1920
T-14869	3 July 1920	30 November 1920
T-14870	1 December 1920	8 July 1921
T-14871	8 July 1921	28 September 1922
T-14871	8 July 1921	28 September 1922

A detailed listing of the contents of microfilms T-515 and T-516 (Vancouver arrivals, 4 January 1905 to June 12, 1908) and T-509 to T-512 (Victoria arrivals, 18 April 1905 to 14 September 1908) is available in:

[Finding Aids to Passenger Lists of Ships, 1901-1910]
Public Archives Canada
[Ottawa: Public Archives of Canada, 198-]
Ref. 929.371 P97f

This book lists the name of each ship and the exact date and port at which it arrived in Canada, making it easy to quickly identify whether the passenger list was submitted at Victoria, Vancouver or another port. The same volume also lists names of ships arriving at eastern Canadian ports from 1900-1908. The exact range of dates covered for each port varies.

At Library and Archives Canada

Passenger lists in custody of Library and Archives Canada are now available in Ancestry Library Edition (see above). For those who prefer to browse microfilm copies of passenger lists for east coast ports, including Quebec, Montreal, Halifax, St. John, North Sydney and others, these are available on microfilm, via inter-library loan, from Library and Archives Canada. The range of dates covered is 1865-1935.

Detailed information about passenger lists at Library and Archives Canada is available on the Canadian Genealogy Centre's Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 page. CGC resources include Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 (RG76): List of Ports, Dates and Microfilm Reels. Refer to this list for numbers of microfilms which can be ordered through the Vancouver Public Library's inter-library loan service, using the online inter-library loan form.

Online

The Nanaimo Family History Society has undertaken a major project of indexing Canadian passenger lists. Currently, the project is indexing arrivals at Quebec ports from 1908 onwards. The periods from 25 July 1909 to 26 April 1910 and 17 September 1910 to 13 October have been completed and an index is available. During this period, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants to Canada were still arriving at West Coast ports, but the Quebec records do include a few individuals of Chinese origin. To access the index, see the Nanaimo Family Society's Passenger List Indexing Project page.

In co-operation with Library and Archives Canada, the Pier 21 Society of Halifax has indexed names from 1925-1935 passenger and made them available in a free online database: Immigration Records (1925-1935). Note that the period covered by the database, 1925-1935, falls entirely into the period from 1923 to 1947 when the Chinese were barred from entering Canada under the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Thus, very few Chinese names are found in the database.

Photo banner: Detail from VPL Historical Photograph 78362