Bahamas Emigration and Immigration: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:10, 14 July 2021

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Bahamas

Emigration and Immigration

How to Find Records[edit | edit source]

Online Records[edit | edit source]

1817-1834 Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1822-1834 (1817-1834 for Bahamas), at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
British Civil Service Evidence Of Age, Bahamas, index ($)

British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Bahamas, index and images, ($)

British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Bahamas, index and images, ($)

British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Bahamas, index and images, ($)

National Archives[edit | edit source]

Department of Archives
P.O. Box SS-6341
Nassau, N.P., Bahamas

Telephone: (242) 393-2175/393-2855
FAX: (242) 393-2855
Email: doarcustomerservice@bahamas.gov.bs

Finding the Town of Origin in Bahamas[edit | edit source]

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

Bahamas Emigration and Immigration[edit | edit source]

"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 to Bahamas[edit | edit source]

As a colony of the British Empire, Bahamas was the destination of British government administrators, shipping and trading merchants, and community settlers, and their families.

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 ==How to Find Records==
 ===Online Records===
-*'''1817-1834''' [https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1129/ Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1822-1834 (1817-1834 for Bahamas)] at Ancestry - index & images ($)
+*'''1817-1834''' [https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1129/ Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1822-1834 (1817-1834 for Bahamas)], at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
-*'''1878-1960''' [https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1518/ UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960] at Ancestry - index & images ($)
+*'''1878-1960''' [https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1518/ UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960], at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
-*'''1890-1960''' [https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?sourcecategory=travel+%26+migration&sid=101&destinationcountry=bahamas Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960] at Findmypast - index & images ($)
+*'''1890-1960''' [https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?sourcecategory=travel+%26+migration&sid=101&destinationcountry=bahamas Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960] at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
-*'''1892-1924''' [https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.anyPlace=bahamas&f.collectionId=1368704&count=20&offset=0&m.defaultFacets=on&m.queryRequireDefault=on&m.facetNestCollectionInCategory=on New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924] Search results for Bahamas
-*[https://www.shipindex.org/ ShipIndex Vessel Research Database] at shipindex.org - index
-*[[United States Emigration and Immigration]]
-*[[Florida Emigration and Immigration]]
-====British Overseas Subjects====
 *[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+civil+service+evidence+of+age&sid=103&county=bahamas British Civil Service Evidence Of Age, Bahamas], index ($)
-*[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+armed+forces+and+overseas+births+and+baptisms&sid=103&country=bahamas British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Bahamas], index & images ($)
+*[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+armed+forces+and+overseas+births+and+baptisms&sid=103&country=bahamas British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Bahamas], index and images, ($)
-*[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+armed+forces+and+overseas+banns+and+marriages&sid=103&country=bahamas British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Bahamas], index & images ($)
+*[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+armed+forces+and+overseas+banns+and+marriages&sid=103&country=bahamas British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Bahamas], index and images, ($)
-*[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+armed+forces+and+overseas+deaths+and+burials&sid=103&country=bahamas British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Bahamas], index & images ($)
+*[https://www.findmypast.com/search/results?datasetname=british+armed+forces+and+overseas+deaths+and+burials&sid=103&country=bahamas British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Bahamas], index and images, ($)
 ===National Archives===
 '''Department of Archives'''<br>
-Mackey St, Nassau SS 6341, Bahamas
+P.O. Box SS-6341<br>
-<br>
-Mailing Address: P.O. Box SS-6341<br>
 Nassau, N.P., Bahamas<br>
 <br>
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 *[http://www.bahamasnationalarchives.bs '''Website''']<br>
 *[http://www.bahamasnationalarchives.bs/family-history.html '''Looking Back: A Genealogical Guide''']
-:::Slave Records: Slave Registers, 1821-1834; Register of Freed Slaves, 1740-1834; Compensation Records, 1834.
-:::Contract Labour Records, 1940-1966: Contract agricultural laborers recruited to work in Florida and the adjacent states. The files contain a wealth of information: name, address, date and place of birth, nationality, settlement, physical description, parents' names, children and spouses names.
-:::Naturalizations, 1861-1930.
 ==Finding the Town of Origin in Bahamas==
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 <span style="color:DarkViolet">'''"Emigration"''' means moving out of a country. '''"Immigration"''' means moving into a country. </span><br>
 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.
-*The Bahama Islands were inhabited by the '''Lucayans''', a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the 'New World' in 1492. Later, '''the Spanish shipped the native Lucayans to and enslaved them on Hispaniola''', after which the Bahama islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648.
+==Immigration to Bahamas==
-*In 1648,  the first English settlers arrived on the islands. Known as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleutheran_Adventurers '''Eleutherian Adventurers''']. They migrated from Bermuda seeking greater religious freedom. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named 'Eleuthera', Greek for 'freedom'. They later settled New Providence, naming it Sayle's Island. Life proved harder than envisaged however, and many chose to return to Bermuda. To survive, the remaining settlers salvaged goods from wrecks.
+As a colony of the British Empire, Bahamas was the destination of British government administrators, shipping and trading merchants, and community settlers, and their families.
-*The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy.
-*After US independence, the British resettled some '''7,300 Loyalists with their African slaves''' in The Bahamas, including 2,000 from New York and at least 1,033 '''European''', 2,214 African ancestrals and a few '''Native American Creeks from East Florida'''. Most of the refugees resettled from New York had fled from other colonies, including West Florida, which the Spanish captured during the war. The government granted land to the planters to help compensate for losses on the continent.
-*The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in The Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Subsequently, The Bahamas became a '''haven for freed African slaves'''.
-*'''Africans liberated from illegal slave ships''' were resettled on the islands by the Royal Navy.
-*Some '''North American slaves and Seminoles escaped to The Bahamas from Florida'''. Bahamians were even known to recognize the freedom of enslaved people carried by the ships of other nations which reached The Bahamas.
-*Today '''Afro-Bahamians''' make up 90% of the population of 332,634.
-*From 1940-1966, contract agricultural laborers recruited to work in Florida and the adjacent states.<ref>"The Bahamas", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bahamas, accessed 14 July 2021.</ref>
-==Emigrations From the Bahamas==
-*There are an estimated 56,498 people of Bahamian ancestry living in the US as of 2015.
-*Bahamians began visiting the Florida Keys in the 18th century to salvage wrecked ships, fish, catch turtles and log tropical hardwood trees. After 1825, '''Bahamian wreckers''' began moving to Key West in large numbers.
-*Bahamians were among the first West Indians to immigrate to the mainland US in the late nineteenth century. Many went to Florida to work in agriculture or to Key West to labor in fishing, sponging, and turtling. Two main factors that contributed to increased Bahamian migration were the poor economic climate and opportunities in the Bahamas, as well as the short distance from the Bahamas to Miami.
-*Southern Florida developed Bahamian enclaves in certain cities including '''Lemon City, Coconut Grove, and Cutler'''.
-*Between 1900 and 1920, between ten and twelve thousand Bahamians moved to Florida, mostly to do agricultural labor, often on a '''seasonal basis'''. *Starting in 1943, Bahamanian workers came to Florida under the '''British West Indian (BWI) Temporary Labor Program'''.
-*The majority of Bahamian Americans, about 21,000 in total, live in and around '''Miami''', with the Bahamian community centered in the '''Coconut Grove''' neighborhood in Miami. There is also a growing Bahamian American population in the '''Atlanta and Oklahoma City''' areas.
-*A large population can be found in the '''New York City''' area, with the population particularly centered in '''Harlem'''. <ref>"Bahamian Amereicans", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamian_Americans, accessed 14 July 2021.</ref>
-==For Further Reading==
-*[https://www.jstor.org/stable/30139824 The American Loyalists in the Bahama Islands: Who They Were]
-==References==
-<references/>
 [[Category:Bahamas]]
 [[Category:Emigration and Immigration Records]]
 [[Category:Bahamas]]