Until about 1845 German emigrants generally chose Antwerp, Rotterdam, or Le Havre as ports of departure.  By the middle of the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs in the north German ports of Bremen and Hamburg realized they could increase their income dramatically by filling ships with emigrants bound for America and other destinations.
The Hamburg Passenger Lists that [...]

Some forty-two million Americans identified themselves as descendants of German immigrants in the 2000 United States Census.  Second place, with about thirty-two million descendants, went to Ireland.  From the founding of Germantown in 1683 to today, millions of Germans have come to America.  How did they travel here and what kind of paper trail did [...]