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New Mexico Emigration and Immigration

New Mexico Wiki Topics
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Beginning Research
Record Types
New Mexico Background
Cultural Groups
Local Research Resources

How to Find the Records

Online Resources

Cultural Groups

Passport Records Online

Offices to Contact

Although many records are included in the online records listed above, there are other records available through these archives and offices. For example, there are many minor ports that have not yet been digitized. There are also records for more recent time periods. For privacy reasons, some records can only be accessed after providing proof that your ancestor is now deceased.

National Archives and Records Administration

  • You may do research in immigration records in person at the National Archives Building, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20408-0001.
New Mexico Ports in NARA Records

Mexican Border Crossing Records: New Mexico


U.S. Citizenship and and Immigration Services Genealogy Program

The USCIS Genealogy Program is a fee-for-service program that provides researchers with timely access to historical immigration and naturalization records of deceased immigrants. If the immigrant was born less than 100 years ago, you will also need to provide proof of his/her death.

Immigration Records Available
  • A-Files: Immigrant Files, (A-Files) are the individual alien case files, which became the official file for all immigration records created or consolidated since April 1, 1944.
  • Alien Registration Forms (AR-2s): Alien Registration Forms (Form AR-2) are copies of approximately 5.5 million Alien Registration Forms completed by all aliens age 14 and older, residing in or entering the United States between August 1, 1940 and March 31, 1944.
  • Registry Files: Registry Files are records, which document the creation of immigrant arrival records for persons who entered the United States prior to July 1, 1924, and for whom no arrival record could later be found.
  • Visa Files: Visa Files are original arrival records of immigrants admitted for permanent residence under provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924.[1]
Requesting a Record

Finding Town of Origin

Records in the countries emigrated from are kept on the local level. You must first identify the name of the town where your ancestors lived to access those records. If you do not yet know the name of the town of your ancestor's birth, there are well-known strategies for a thorough hunt for it.

Background

  • The earliest non-Indian settlers of New Mexico were the 130 Hispanic families who came into the upper Rio Grande Valley in 1598 on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
  • At the time of the Pueblo revolt of 1680, the New Mexico Spanish population was about 2,500.
  • By 1817, just before Mexican independence, the Spanish population of New Mexico had reached 27,000.
  • After the United States took control in 1848, immigrants from Mexico settled in the north central part of the state.
  • The influx of Anglo-Americans first began about 1850, when the Santa Fe Trail was used by many on their way to the California gold fields.
  • The eastern third of New Mexico was settled after the Civil War by Protestants from Texas.
  • The southwestern corner attracted miners from other states after the coming of the railroads in the 1880s.
  • Colorado ranchers and Latter-day Saint colonists (after 1876) settled the San Juan Valley in the northwest corner of the state.

Immigration Records

Immigration refers to people coming into a country. Emigration refers to people leaving a country to go to another. Immigration records usually take the form of ship's passenger lists collected at the port of entry. See Online Resources.

What can I find in them?

Information in Passenger Lists

  • Before 1820 - Passenger lists before 1820 included name, departure information and arrival details. The names of wives and children were often not included.
  • 1820-1891 - Customs Passenger Lists between 1820 and 1891 asked for each immigrant’s name, their age, their sex, their occupation, and their country of origin, but not the city or town of origin.
  • 1891-1954 - Information given on passenger lists from 1891 to 1954 included:
    • name, age, sex,
    • nationality, occupation, marital status,
    • last residence, final destination in the U.S.,
    • whether they had been to the U.S. before (and if so, when, where and how long),
    • if joining a relative, who this person was, where they lived, and their relationship,
    • whether able to read and write,
    • whether in possession of a train ticket to their final destination, who paid for the passage,
    • amount of money the immigrant had in their possession,
    • whether the passenger had ever been in prison, a poorhouse, or in an institution for the insane,
    • whether the passenger was a polygamist,
    • and immigrant's state of health.
  • 1906-- - In 1906, the physical description and place of birth were included, and a year later, the name and address of the passenger’s closest living relative in the country of origin was included.

Information in Passports

Over the years, passports and passport applications contained different amounts of information about the passport applicant. The first passports that are available begin in 1795. These usually contained the individual's name, description of individual, and age. More information was required on later passport applications, such as:

  • Birthplace
  • Birth date
  • Naturalization information
  • Arrival information, if foreign born

In-country Migration

Migration Routes

For Further Reading

The FamilySearch Library has additional sources listed in their catalog:

References

  • New Mexico Research Outline. Salt Lake City, Utah: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., Family History Department, 1988. (NOTE: All information in the original research outline has been imported into the FamilySearch Wiki and is being updated as time permits.)
  1. ↑ "Genealogy", at USCIS, https://www.uscis.gov/records/genealogy, accessed 26 March 2021.
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