Find your ancestors in New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1846-1851

Explore the names of those entering the port of New Orleans, Louisiana between the years 1846 and 1851. These exciting records will reveal new information about your family’s journey to America, including details about the ship, occupations, and other relatives.

What can these records tell me?

With more than 70,000 individual records, each name represents an original entry on the passenger list. While information on a passenger can vary, the New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1846-1851 typically provide:

  • Name
  • Age
  • Occupation
  • Country of origin
  • Ship departure port
  • Date of arrival
  • Ship name
  • People with same last name on this voyage


    • Discover more about New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1846-1851

    The New Orleans Passenger Lists provides information about all passengers who entered the port of New Orleans between 1846 and 1851 from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and other countries. A time of tremendous immigration to America, these records correspond to the period of the Great Irish Famine. During the Famine, millions of families left Ireland to start a new life in America, making the Irish the largest immigrant group in Louisiana in the 1840s and 1850s. As a major port city located on the Mississippi River, New Orleans was the gateway for immigrants who continued their journey into the interior and more western areas of the United States, such as Illinois, Missouri, and beyond.

    When researching your own family, keep in mind that some families did not always arrive in a single group. In some cases, the head of a family would travel ahead to prepare the way for his wife and children. Their arrival in New Orleans was often only the first stop on a family’s longer journey into America. Families frequently made their way to areas where distant relatives or those from their former homeland had previously settled.

    Passenger lists are just one of many records that detail your family’s journey to the United States. These records can include errors or mistakes in spellings, occupations, and ages. Birth years in this collection were calculated from an individual’s stated age and the year of immigration. To find more information about your relatives, explore local newspapers, as well as census and vital records. Naturalization records are another useful source, as many immigrants were eager to become American citizens, filing papers for their naturalization soon after their arrival.

    These records are provided in partnership with the JFK Trust. The original records are held at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C.