Information on Records of Passenger Arrivals
at the Port of New Orleans
Louisiana Division
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70112-2044
504-596-2610

Please note:   We do not accept mail requests to search passenger arrival lists or the indexes to those lists. Patrons and visitors to NOPL may search these films in the Louisiana Division. The New Orleans passenger arrival records have been digitized and are currently available at Ancestry.com (subscription only).

We have the following National Archives passenger lists and indexes on microfilm:

  • M259 -- Passenger lists of vessels arriving at New Orleans, 1820-1902.
  • M272 -- Quarterly abstracts of passenger lists of vessels arriving at New Orleans, 1820-1875.
  • M334 -- Supplemental index to passenger lists of vessels arriving at Atlantic and Gulf ports (excluding New York), 1820-1874 (includes New Orleans, 1820-1850.)
  • M575 -- Copies of lists of passengers arriving at miscellaneous ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts..., 1820-1873 (excluding New Orleans.)
  • T527 -- Index to passenger lists of vessels arriving at New Orleans before 1900 (covers 1853-1899).
  • T618 -- Index to passenger lists of vessels arriving at New Orleans, 1900-1952.
  • T905 -- Passenger lists of vessels arriving at New Orleans, 1903-1945.
  • LN57 -- Passenger lists taken from manifests of the Customs Service, Port of New Orleans, 1813-1866.

The 1850-1853 gap in indexing for New Orleans between the M334 and the T527 films may be at least partially filled by the LN57 films. In the absence of an index reference during that period, however, the researcher is advised to search the actual lists and/or quarterly abstracts.

(See also The Louisiana State Archives' project to fill in the 1851-1852 gap in indexing of New Orleans passenter arrivals.)

Not all persons who entered the United States at New Orleans, or elsewhere, appear on the available passenger lists. Some lists were lost. Some ship captains probably did not record all passengers on the lists for one reason or another. Indexers do not always spell names correctly, often because the original version of the name was illegible. Since no index is 100% accurate, the only way to be certain whether or not a name is in the actual record is to search the record itself.

There are several additional sources for immigration information on passengers arriving at New Orleans:

  1. Some naturalization records provide information on place and/or date of arrival (see our Form L10 for information on naturalization searches).
  2. Voter registration records usually give some information on time of arrival in the city and also usually provide exact reference to naturalization records (see our Form L10 for information on voter registration searches).
  3. The admission records of the New Orleans Charity Hospital give data on place of origin and time of residence in the city for its patients, many of whom were recent immigrants during the 19th century. We do not search the latter records, but we can provide the names of outside researchers who may be able to be of assistance.


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Revised 7/12/2016