Thailand Emigration and Immigration

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Online Records

Search under both "Siam" and "Thailand".

• 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast - index & images ($)
• 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Siam
• United States Immigration Online Genealogy Records

Background

Thai nationals make up the majority of Thailand's population, 95.9% in 2010. The remaining 4.1% of the population are Burmese (2.0%), others 1.3%, and unspecified 0.9%. Increasing numbers of migrants from neighboring Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as from Nepal and India, have pushed the total number of non-national residents to around 3.5 million as of 2009, up from an estimated 2 million in 2008, and about 1.3 million in 2000. Some 41,000 Britons and 20,000 Australians live in Thailand.

Expatriates in Thailand

• The largest foreign community are the Burmese, followed by the Cambodians and Laotians.
• As of March 2018, Thai government data showed that over 770,900 Cambodian migrants, meaning five percent of the total population of Cambodia, currently live in Thailand. Some NGOs estimate that the actual number may be up to one million.
• Laotians are particularly numerous considering the small size of Laos' population, about seven million, due to the lack of a language barrier.
• The Chinese expatriate employee population in Thailand, mostly Bangkok, has doubled from 2011-2016, making it the largest foreign community in Thailand not originating in a neighbouring country. Chinese hold 13.3 percent of all work permits issued in Thailand, an increase of almost one-fifth since 2015.
• Japanese expats are on the decline, and now rank sixth, behind Chinese and British. One in every four foreigners working in Thailand formerly were Japanese, and the figure has now dropped slightly to 22.8 percent of the foreign workforce as of late-2016.
• In 2018, Thailand issued almost 80,000 retirement visas, an increase of 30% from 2014, with Britons accounting for the majority of the new visas.
• In 2010 there were 27,357 Westerners living in the northeastern region, 90 percent living with Thai spouses.

Overseas Thai

Overseas Thai people number approximately 2.7 million persons worldwide. They can be roughly divided into two groups:

• A "non-resident Thai" is a citizen of Thailand who holds a Thai passport and has temporarily emigrated to another country for employment, residence, education or any other purpose. The Bank of Thailand estimates that, as of 2016, 1,120,837 Thais worked overseas.
  • Israel: As of 2018, a total of 24,746 Thais, mostly agricultural workers, temporarily resided in Israel.
  • Republic of Korea: As of September 2018, there were reportedly 192,163 Thais living in South Korea. The Korean Justice Ministry estimates that the number of illegal Thai residents soared from 68,449 in 2017 to 122,192 as of August 2018.[5]
• A "person of Thai origin" is a person of Thai origin or ancestry who was or whose ancestors were born in Thailand or other countries under Thai ancestry and holds non-Thai citizenship. A person of Thai origin might have been a citizen of Thailand and subsequently taken the citizenship of another country.

Thai Americans

• Thai immigration to the United States proceeded very slowly. It began in earnest during and after the Vietnam War, in which Thailand was an ally of the US and South Vietnam. Records show that in the decade between 1960 and 1970, some 5,000 Thais immigrated to the United States. In the following decade, the number increased to 44,000. From 1981 to 1990, approximately 64,400 Thai citizens moved to the United States. According to the 2000 census there were 150,093 Thais in the United States. In 2009, 304,160 US residents listed themselves as Thais.

The 2010 U.S. census counted 237,629 Thai Americans in the country, of whom 67,707 live in California.

• Los Angeles, California, has the largest Thai population outside of Asia. It is home to the world's first Thai Town. In 2002, it was estimated that over 80,000 Thais and Thai Americans live in Los Angeles.
• Other large Thai communities are in:
  • California; San Francisco, California; Fresno, California; Sacramento, California;
  • King County, Washington; Seattle, Washington;
  • Fairfax County, Virginia;
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
  • Queens, New York;
  • Madison, Wisconsin; and
  • Montgomery County, Maryland.

Thais in the United Kingdom

• The 2011 Census recorded 39,784 Thai-born residents in England, 1,566 residents in Wales, 2,267 in Scotland, and 469 in Northern Ireland. At the time of the 2001 UK Census, 16,257 people born in Thailand were residing in the UK.
• Of the Thai-born people in the UK in 2001, 72 per cent were women. The Home Office states that the overwhelming majority of new Thai immigrants to the UK became naturalized citizens through marriage, with less than one in three cases occurring through residence.
• Between 2003 and 2006, 64 per cent of all settlement grants to Thai immigrants were given to wives, 3 per cent to husbands and 14 per cent to children. This means that the Thai community in the UK is surprisingly widespread, as marriage migrants are likely to be scattered across the country with their partners, instead of following the trend of migrant groups settling together in large cities.
• Despite this, due to their large populations already, the cities of London, Sheffield, Birmingham and Glasgow are all home to significant numbers of people of Thai origin.

Thai Australians

• In January 1950, the Australian government launched the Colombo Plan, an aid program for sponsoring Asian students to study or train in Australian tertiary institutions. Approximately 450 Thai students travelled to Australia on the Colombo Plan between 1954 and 1989. Most did not settle in Australia permanently, but they increased awareness of Australia when they returned to Thailand. Between the 1950s and 1970s the majority of new arrivals from Thailand in Australia continued to be students, as well as spouses of Australians and those sponsored under military traineeships.
• The number of migrants in Australia grew significantly when the Immigration Restriction Act was repealed in 1973. In 1975, Australia accepted many Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian refugees for settlement.
• The latest Census in 2011 recorded 45,465 Thailand-born people in Australia, an increase of 48.8 per cent from the 2006 Census. The 2011 distribution by state and territory showed New South Wales had the largest number with 17,541, followed by Victoria (10,766), Queensland (7,022) and Western Australia (5,662). Among the total Thailand-born in Australia at the 2011 Census, 23.1 per cent arrived between 2001 and 2006 and 32.8 per cent arrived between 2006 and 2011.

Records of Thai Emigrants in Their Destination Nations

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.

United States Emigration and Immigration Australia Emigration and Immigration England Emigration and Immigration Israel Emigration and Immigration

South Korea Emigration and Immigration India Emigration and Immigration China Emigration and Immigration New Zealand Emigration and Immigration