Madagascar Emigration and Immigration

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French Overseas Subjects

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Finding the Town of Origin in Madagascar

If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Madagascar, see Madagascar Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Madagascar Emigration and Immigration

"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country.
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration into Madagascar

  • Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar, previously known as the Malagasy Republic, was ruled by a fragmented assortment of shifting sociopolitical alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, most of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles. The monarchy ended in 1897 when the island was absorbed into the French colonial empire, from which the island gained independence in 1960.
  • Under colonial rule, plantations were established for the production of a variety of export crops. Slavery was abolished in 1896 and approximately 500,000 slaves were freed; many remained in their former masters' homes as servants or as sharecroppers.
  • Chinese, Indian and Comoran minorities are present in Madagascar, as well as a small European (primarily French) populace.
  • Emigration in the late 20th century has reduced these minority populations, occasionally in abrupt waves, such as the exodus of Comorans in 1976, following anti-Comoran riots in Mahajanga.
  • By comparison, there has been no significant emigration of Malagasy peoples.
  • The number of Europeans has declined since independence, reduced from 68,430 in 1958 to 17,000 three decades later.
  • There were an estimated 25,000 Comorans, 18,000 Indians, and 9,000 Chinese living in Madagascar in the mid-1980s.[1]

Emigration From Madagascar

KNOMAD Statistics: Emigrants: 166,900. Top destination countries: France, Comoros, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Mauritius, Germany, Seychelles, Botswana [2]

Records of Emigrants in Their Destination Nations

Dark thin font green pin Version 4.png One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country of destination, the country they immigrated into. See links to Wiki articles about immigration records for major destination countries below. Additional Wiki articles for other destinations can be found at Category:Emigration and Immigration Records.

References

  1. "Madagascar", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar#French_colonization, accessed 1 August 2021.
  2. "Madagascar", at KNOMAD, the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, https://www.knomad.org/data/migration/emigration?page=14, accessed 1 August 2021.