Armenia Emigration and Immigration

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Armenia

Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

• hayrenadardz.org (Museum of repatriation [to Soviet Armenia]), name search must be done in Armenian.
• Armenian Immigration Project. Database of indexed US records for Armenians (passenger lists, naturalization records, military draft cards, vital records, etc.).
• 1730-1797 Iranitsʿ Hayastan hergaghtʿatsneri, 1843-1953 Migration documents of former Armenian citizens migrating back to Armenia from Iran, 1946. Files 1-1729 are documents listed alphabetically by immigrant. Files 1730-1797 are Armenian migration lists arranged by locality in Iran. Includes inventory. Text in Armenian and Russian.
• 1921-1937 Immigration to and internal migration within Armenia, 1921-1937 Migration documents of former Armenian citizens immigrating back to Armenia from various countries. Also, internal migration of Armenian citizens resettling within Armenia. Includes inventories. Text in Armenian.
• 1922List of Armenian refugees living at Camp Oddo, Marseille, 1922
• 1926-1946 Passport Nansen: List of Transit of Nansen Passport Holders in Marseilles (1926-1946)
• Anvanatsʿutsʿay artsaahmanitsʿ nergaghtʿogh Hayeri : IMMIGRATION NAME LIST In Armenian.
• 1942-1949 Sarber ervneritsʿ nergaghtʿats Hayeri, 1942-1949 Migration documents of former Armenian citizens immigrating back to Armenia from Austria, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Leganon, Greece, France, and Iran, 1946-1948. Also, internal migration documents of Armenian citizens resettling within Armenia, 1948. Includes inventory. Text in Armenian.
• 1946-1949 Amerikayi Mistsʿyal Nahangneritsʿ, Irakʿitsʿ, Huyastanitsʿ, Paghestinitsʿ, Ṛuminiayitsʿ, Siriayitsʿ, ev Libananitsʿ, ayl erkrneritsʿ Hayastan nergaghtʿtsneri, 1946-1949 Migration documents of former Armenian citizens migrating back to Armenia from the United States, Iraq, Greece, Palestine, Romania, Syria, and Lebanon, 1946-1949. Text in Armenian.
• 1946-1947 Egiptositsʿ Hayastan nergaghtʿatsneri ev nergaghtʿel tsʿankatsoghneri, 1946-1947 Migration documents of former Armenian citizens migrating to Armenia from Egypt, 1946-1947. Filed alphabetically by immigrant surname. Includes inventory. Text in Armenian.
• 1946-1949 Hayastani kʿaghakʿnerum ev shrjannerm terghavorvats nergaghtats Hayeri, 1946-1949 Migration documents of Armenian citizens migrating internally to various other parts of Armenia. Also former Armenian citizens from various other countries immigrating to Armenia. Includes inventory. Text in Armenian.
• 1946-1947 Ֆրանսիայից՝ Հաւաստան ներգաղթել ցանկացողների եվ ներգաղթացների : Հայաստան, 1946-1947] "Those who want to immigrate to France from Armenia " Armenia, 1946-1947
• 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
• 1947-1948 Amerikayi miatsʿyal nahangneritsʿ nergaghtʿel tsʿankatsogh Hayeri, 1947-1948 Migration documents of former Armenian citizens migrating to Armenia from the United States, 1947-1948. Index and images. Text in Armenian and English.

Armenian Diaspora

• Armenians living in their ancient homeland, which had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries, fled persecution, massacres and genocide during several periods of forced emigration, from the 1880s to the 1920s. Many Armenians settled in the United States, a majority of whom live in the state of California, France, Canada, Greece, Cyprus, Iran, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, and a small orphan population in the former Ethiopian Empire.
• The Armenian diaspora is divided into two communities – those from Ottoman Armenia (or Western Armenia) and those who are from the former Soviet Union, the independent Armenia and Iran (or Eastern Armenia).
• Armenians of the modern Republic of Turkey do not consider themselves as part of the Armenian Diaspora, since they believe that they continue residing in their historical homeland.
• The Armenian diaspora grew considerably during and after the First World War due to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Although many Armenians perished during the Armenian genocide, some of the Armenians who managed to escape, established themselves in various parts of the world. By 1966, around 40 years after the start of the Armenian genocide, 2 million Armenians still lived in Armenia, while 330,000 lived in Russia, and 450,000 lived in the United States and Canada.
• Their pre-World War I population area was six times larger than that of present-day Armenia, including the eastern regions of Turkey, northern part of Iran, and the southern part of Georgia.
• By the year 2000, there were 7,580,000 Armenians living abroad in total.
• Today, the Armenian diaspora refers to communities of Armenians living outside of Armenia. The total Armenian population living worldwide is estimated to be 11,000,000. Of those, approximately 3 million currently live in Armenia, 130,000 in the de facto independent Republic of Artsakh and 120,000 in the region of Javakheti in neighboring Georgia. This leaves approximately 7,000,000 throughout the diaspora (with the largest populations in Russia, the United States, France, Argentina, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Canada, Ukraine, Greece, Cyprus, and Australia).

Armenians in the United States

• The first major wave of Armenian immigration to the United States took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thousands of Armenians settled in the United States following the Hamidian massacres of the mid-1890s, the Adana Massacre of 1909, and the Armenian genocide of 1915-1918 in the Ottoman Empire.
• Since the 1950s many Armenians from the Middle East (especially from Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey) migrated to America as a result of political instability in the region. It accelerated in the late 1980s and has continued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 due to socio-economic and political reasons.
• The 2017 American Community Survey estimated that 485,970 Americans held full or partial Armenian ancestry. Various organizations and media criticize these numbers as an underestimate, proposing 800,000 to 1,500,000 Armenian Americans instead.
• The highest concentration of Americans of Armenian descent is in the Greater Los Angeles area, where 166,498 people have identified themselves as Armenian to the 2000 Census, comprising over 40% of the 385,488 people who identified Armenian origins in the US at the time. The city of Glendale in the Los Angeles metropolitan area is widely thought to be the center of Armenian American life (although many Armenians live in the aptly named "Little Armenia" municipality of Los Angeles).
• Since the 19th century the first Armenians appeared in New York. The states of New York and Massachusetts were top destinations for Armenian immigrants in the early 20th century. The area between East 20th Street, Lexington Avenue and First Avenue, where a compact Armenian population lived and Armenian shops existed, was called "Little Armenia" until the 1960s. Today, according to estimates there are 150,000 Armenians in the Tri-State area. Queens is home to some 50,000 Armenian Americans, Manhattan has 10,000 Armenian population centered in Gramercy Park, Kips Bay and Murray Hill, where St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral is.
• The Armenian community in Boston was not founded until the 1880s. Today, estimates say that Armenians number from 50,000 to 70,000 in the Greater Boston area. Worcester, Massachusetts was also a major center for Armenian immigrants in the early part of the twentieth century.
• Other major northeastern cities with significant Armenian populations include Philadelphia and Providence. Like other Armenian communities in America, Armenian communities in these cities have their roots in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Currently, Philadelphia holds about 15,000 Armenian American population and over 7,000 live in Providence.
• There is also a small Armenian community in Portland, Maine.
• The early Armenian immigrants in Detroit were mostly laborers. In later decades, particularly since the 1960s Middle Eastern Armenians immigrated to Michigan. The Armenian community has been described as "highly educated, professional and prospering." Today, they number about 22,000.
• Chicago's Armenians also first settled in the city in the late 19th century in small numbers, but it increased through the 20th century, reaching about 25,000 by today.
• As of 2003 more than 8,000 Armenian Americans lived in Washington, DC.
• Since the turn of the century there been a trend towards an increase in number of Armenians living outside of traditional settlement areas. For instance, the number of Armenians in Nevada increased from 2,880 in 2000 to 5,845 in 2010, Florida from 9,226 to 15,856, and Texas from 4,941 to 14,459.

For Further Reading

• Armenian immigrants : Boston 1891-1901, New York 1880-1897

There are additional sources listed in the FamilySearch Catalog:

• Armenia - Emigration and immigration