Immigrants who came to America, but returned to their home country

You can search for outward bound passenger lists in the National Archives catalog. If you find a catalog record for an outward bound passenger list from the port the person departed from, contact the archive custodial unit listed at the bottom of the catalog record.

These manifests don’t offer a lot of information and are not indexed online but you may be able to find passenger manifests for the port the person arrived in. For example, if the person arrived in the United Kingdom you can check the incoming passenger manifest at the National Archive in the U.K.

You can also do some searching for other information by accessing free online indexes to some of our records, and indexes for records held by other area repositories, at the following websites:

• German Genealogy Group
• Family Search

You may also want to search the person’s name to see what comes up in Ancestry .

You can visit their site or contact them to determine costs. They are available for free public use at all National Archives research facilities and many public libraries.

The Ancestry.com database entitled “U.S., Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1914-1965” primarily addresses aircraft and ship departures across the U.S. dating from the late 1930s, but the port of New York City has records dating from 1914. A detailed list of the ports and dates of embarkation records can be found at:

http://search.ancestry.com/search/dbextra.aspx?dbid=60882    

Many local libraries provide access to Ancestry.com without having to pay a subscription fee.