Senegal Emigration and Immigration

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Finding the Town of Origin in Senegal

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

Senegal Emigration and Immigration

"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 into Senegal

  • In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese landed on the Senegal coastline. Various European powers — Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain — competed for trade in the area from the 15th century onward.
  • In 1677, France gained control of what had become a minor departure point in the Atlantic slave trade: the island of Gorée next to modern Dakar, used as a base to purchase slaves from the warring chiefdoms on the mainland.
  • European missionaries introduced Christianity to Senegal and the Casamance in the 19th century.
  • It was only in the 1850s that the French began to expand onto the Senegalese mainland, after they abolished slavery and began promoting an abolitionist doctrine, adding native kingdoms like the Waalo, Cayor, Baol, and Jolof Empire.
  • French colonists progressively invaded and took over all the kingdoms, except Siné and Saloum. [1]

Emigration From Senegal

<ref> at KNOMAD, the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development

Records of Emigrants in Their Destination Nations

Dark thin font green pin Version 4.png One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country of destination, the country they immigrated into. See links to immigration records for major destination countries below.

For Further Reading

There are additional sources listed in the FamilySearch Catalog:

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References

  1. "Senegal", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegal, accessed 29 July 2021.