Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild is a website that provides the genealogical researcher with information regarding passenger lists of immigrants not only traveling to the United States, but also to Australia, and Argentina. Be forwarned that this site has a large number of ads on the front page that lead you various subscription genealogical web site; these ads are what sponsors the ISTG Site. The Immigration period that these records cover are for 1820 - 1892. The links to the free transcriptions are located about mid page and include the following links:

The Compass:
* Compass Index
* Ship Images
* Lists Offsite to USA
* Lists Offsite non USA

Ships List
* Volume 1
* Volume 2
* Volume 3
* Volume 4
* Volume 5
* Volume 6
* Volume 7
* Volume 8
* Volume 9
* German Departs
* NY Arrivals

Miscellaneous
* Maritime News
* Immig. Pictures
* Poems
* 1820 Imm. Act
* Contributors

Special Lists
* Austria, Poland, Galicia
* Irish to Argentina
* WW2 refugees to Aust.
* 1903 Project
* Halifax Depart & Arrivals

Guild Index
* News & Awards
* Application
* E-Mail Us
* Research Team

A Search Link is also available for use as well. Please note that after you have clicked on the Search Link the page will consist of three different ways to search.
* ISTG only Search
* Ancestry.com Search
* Ellis Island Search

This is a nice feature in that you can research ISTG and Ellis Island for free from the same web site. If you utilize the ancestry.com link, it will take you to ancestry.com and offer you a trial subsciption. Another way to search is to browse through each of the volumes for the specific immigration year that you are searching. The lists of each volume are divided by ports of departure, ports of arrival, and also searchable by utlizing a drill down search of surnames.

If you are having trouble locating the person/persons and prefer not to do the research yourself, you can request someone to perform the research for you for a nominal fee. They also request the following information:

* We need the name of the ship if you know it.
* We need their complete names, including any alternate spellings of the surname.
* We need all the complete names of those traveling together, even the children, as many as you know.
* We need their approximate ages.
* We need either a Port of Arrival or a Port of Departure.
* We need to know their nationality.
* If your ancestor was from "Germany", "Austria", or "Russia", it could help us to know the specific region or state, if possible.
* We need an approximate date of arrival or departure, the year alone is not enough.
* Double-check the dates, and make sure you are typing in the year correctly.
* We need all of this information in one email.

This site is definitely worth searching if you are looking for your immigrant ancestors. If you are unsure of the year of immigration of your ancestor, try and locate them in the 1900 census records (the first census to indicate information about immigration and naturalization)to obtain this information. This will help you narrow down your search on the ships list. If you are interested in browsing ISTG, click the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (ISTG)Link.