Hawaii Emigration and Immigration

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.

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

Web Request Page allows you to request a records, pay fees, and upload supporting documents (proof of death).
Record Requests Frequently Asked Questions

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.

U. S. Immigration Records: Finding the Town of Origin

Background

Less than 1 percent of Hawaii's population is pure-blooded Hawaiian. Many immigrant groups originally came as contract laborers to work in the sugar fields. The Chinese began arriving in 1852, followed by the Portuguese in 1878, the Japanese in 1884, Koreans in 1903, and Filipinos in 1906. Those of Japanese descent presently constitute about 30 percent of the total population, and are the largest ethnic group in Hawaii. American missionaries from New England started coming in 1820, but the number of Americans was not significant until about 1875. For a summary of immigrant information see A History of Hawaiian Immigration

An especially helpful history of the many ethnic groups in Hawaii is Eleanor C. Nordyke, The Peopling of Hawaii(Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of Hawaii, 1989) FHL book 996.9 W2n). Family History Library records of ethnic groups are listed in the FamilySearch Catalog under the subject heading HAWAII - MINORITIES. There are published histories for the Japanese and Filipinos, and annotated bibliographies for the Chinese and Koreans.

Hawaii. Bureau of Immigration, 7.7.1898-6.14.1900 NARA Administrative History Note

Records

The principal port of entry for immigrants into Hawaii is the Honolulu Harbor. *The names of early passengers and the ships they came on are indexed in Bernice Judd, Voyages to Hawaii Before 1860, Reprint (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1974) FHL book 996.9 W3j *Hawaii Collector of Customs, Ships' Passenger Manifests, 1843-1900 (SLC, Utah, 1976-1977) FHL film 1002794 (first of 72) On these films there are separate indexes for the Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese, and a general index for the rest of the passengers. *The Family History Library and the Office of the Consulate General of Portugal in Honolulu have microfilm of passenger lists of Portuguese immigrants for the years 1878 to 1913.FHL film 1017125
These two pages were omitted in error from previous filming;FHL film 1321135 item 17 *Hawaiian Sugar Planter's Association, Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Passenger Manifests of Filipino Contract Laborers (SLC, Utah, 1977-1978) FHL film 1002824 (first of 85) Digital version No longer available through FamilySearch Catalog entry. You can find microfilm at the FHL by doing catalog search for film 1,002,824 or 1204590. The BYU index will read up names in the keword-all http://lib.byu.edu/digital/filipinolaborers/ as of Mar2014. Do not click on pix. Click on name hits in blue. Cards include the migrant and his family's vitals, as well as the emmigration ship/dates, and sometimes a fingerprint card. An alphabetical index of immigrant Filipinos for the years 1906 to about 1977. *For immigration records for various nationalities which are available through the Family History library see Hawaii Emigration and Immigration