Emigration - Via Bremen into the world

A joint project of the MAUS with the Bremen Chamber of Commerce and the Bremen State Archive (Staatsarchiv Bremen)  under the direction of Karl Wesling. Under the above heading, this project was started in 1999 to mark the 75th anniversary of our association and was completed after 7 years with the help of many volunteers, the “Aus-Wanderer-Mäuse”. The basis was to be the "Passagierlisten" and other name lists on the subject of migration stored in the Chamber of Commerce and the State Archives.

This resulted in five databases:

Bremen passenger lists

Emigration of Bremen citizens: 1608 - 1874

Register of Passports: 1862 - 1936

Departures of emigration passages: 1834 - 1939

Lost and found: Reports of ship disasters and conditions in emigration transportation from 1796 - 1885

Please send inquiries to:
Monika Ayers: JETDOC2@aol.com
or to
Karl Wesling: kwesling@gmx.de

Information on the history of the databases can be found in Karl Wesling's contribution to the commemorative publication on the 100th anniversary of the MAUS (only in german language):

Wie die Datenbank Bremer-Passagierlisten.de zu dem wurde, was sie heute ist.

For the period 1946 - 1974, there are name indexes of emigrants in the Bremen State Archives. Information can be obtained from these files in accordance with personal data protection and the Bremen Archive Act ("Bremische Archivbenutzungsordnung"). Further research possibilities in the Bremen State Archives :

  • Emigration conditions in the port cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven (agencies, legislation, welfare, accommodation, healthcare, police)
  • Emigrant transportation (shipping, port facilities, crossing conditions, statistics)
  • Data on the individual emigrant ships including ship departures, passenger numbers, crew members and proof of ship pictures

The Research Center German Emigrants in the USA (DAUSA, www.dausa.de) at the University of Oldenburg.  The research center has microfilms of passenger lists for the years 1820 - 1902, holdings of the National Archives in Washington D.C., as well as the German Emigration Center Bremerhaven www.dah-bremerhaven.de with free access to the database at www.ancestry.com the holdings of the National Archives in Washington.