Find your ancestors in California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953

Learn more about your family members who arrived in the United States in the city of San Francisco in California, on the west coast of United States. Discover key details about your ancestors like their birth place and their date of arrival in the country.

What can these records tell me?

There are more than 930,000 records in this collection, and each includes a transcript and an image of the original passenger list for people arriving in the port of San Francisco, California during the first half of the 20th century. While the information for each person varies, California, San Francisco Passenger Lists 1893-1953 usually provides:

  • First and last name
  • Age
  • Birth year
  • Birth place/nationality
  • Arrival date
  • Ship name

    • Discover more about California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953

    Located in northern California, San Francisco is the major city in the region and has long been a cultural and economic capital. Its position at the mouth of San Francisco Bay has meant the city also has an important maritime tradition and thousands of people passed through its port over the years. These passenger lists document this history and show the arrival of people to San Francisco from the turn of the 20th century up until the 1950s.

    Discover your ancestor in these records and learn new information about your family members and their journey in the United States. The details your uncover will help you to continue your genealogical research in our other collections of California records and newspapers and US national collections, like the census and military records. These passenger lists are in the process of ongoing indexation, so if you cannot find your ancestor in the index now, check back again soon.