PASSENGER LISTS OF THE HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE, 1900-1940
On microfiche
Historical Background
The Port of Rotterdam
In the course of the centuries Rotterdam has been one of the most important ports in northern Europe for emigrants departing for North America. In the period 1880-1925, the high point for massive emigration from Europe, nearly a million people made the leap into the great unknown trough Rotterdam. In those years many East European Jews were forced by pogroms to flee their native lands and chose under trying circumstances to emigrate trough Rotterdam.
The Holland-America Line
In this period the Holland-America-Line (HAL) (originally founded as the Netherlands-American Steamship Company = NASM) was the principal Rotterdam-based carrier, it ships transporting hundreds of thousands of emigrants of many different nationalities, such as, in addition to Jews, Russians, Poles, Romanians, Germans, Austrians, Dutch, and many others, to destinations in the new world. An important source for research into this colossal movement of people is formed by the passenger records of this company, which have been preserved for the years 1900-1940 (earlier records have unfortunately been lost). These documents have now been filmed on microfiche in cooperation with the Municipal Archives of Rotterdam where they are kept.
Structure of the documents
The documents can be divides into two series: the large registers in which the company recorded information about the passengers booking passage and their fares (called Staat van Passagegelden in Dutch) and the indexes the company compiled (called Passagiersregister in Dutch).
Record of passages
(on 781 microfiches)
These were kept for each sailing and maintained a similar format throughout the years. Across a double-page spread in columns the company recorded such information as:
— the name of the passenger
— the number of the "contract" (ticket) for passage
— the number of other full-, half- or free-fares booked by the passenger (i.e. for family)
— from where and to where the passenger was booked
— whether rail passages were also booked (with the booking number, number of tickets, class and price
— who recorded the booking, e.g. the company’s agent in Vienna, or Paris
— the adult fare price
— whether any agents were involved, where, and commissions paid to them
— prepaid fares, net amounts
— reservation fees;
— subsequent payments; in foreign currency; in Dutch currency
— totals sums paid by the passenger for sea passage; European rail passage; American rail passage
— remarks
These data are given for each class of passage (first, second or third, most immigrants would have been traveling in the latter category) for each sailing. Each record opens with the name of the ship and the date of sailing and gives a recapitulation of the totals by class. In the early years of the century sailings to New York from Rotterdam, usually via Boulogne in France where additional passengers boarded, were frequent, even weekly as the demand for passage swelled. During the First World War, on the other hand, there were far fewer departures. After the war, emigration resumed, but due to restrictions in immigration laws in the USA the volume was decidedly lower than in the prewar period. In addition to immigrants, of course, the line also transported passengers traveling for business or pleasure, so-called "cabin passengers" (kajuitpassagiers) in first or second class. They were, however, a mere handful per sailing compared to the masses in steerage.
The index
(on 272 microfiches)
The second series in the microfiche collection consists of the indexes compiled by the company on an approximately annual basis, which start on 6 December 1900. They are alphabetized by letter but the alphabetizing is not strict within the letter.
In four columns they record:
— the passenger’s name
— contract (ticket) number
— name of the ship
— date of departure
Publisher’s guide and concordance
MMF has prepared a guide in English explaining the structure of the materials and the use of the microfiches. This guide is free with purchase of the complete collection or subsets. Translations are given of the Dutch words used in the records, so that no special knowledge of Dutch is necessary to do research with the collection. The Publishers have also established concordances that enable the user first to find the relevant index fiche(s) and then to locate the full record for the particular passenger in the main body of documentation.
Subsets available
As a convenience to researchers whose interest only extends to a shorter period of time, MMF is making the collection available in smaller units. Please inquire for complete information on the number of microfiche and prices.
Importance for research
The records of Holland-America Line for the years 1900-1940 made available here on microfiche will prove an important source for genealogists trying to trace persons who emigrated to North America through the port of Rotterdam. Taken as a whole these company records also provide a great deal of information for the history of emigration to North America in general. Issues such as the prices paid for transportation of various sorts, where and by whom bookings were made - the HAL maintained a chain of offices and agents in various locations in Europe and a hotel in Rotterdam for those in transit - and many other general business aspects of the HAL, its feeders and network can now also be studied thanks to this documentation. While not the largest port of departure nor the largest transporter of immigrants, Rotterdam and the Holland-America Line played far from negligible roles in that drama. Students of mass transportation and steam navigation in the first half of the twentieth century will also be able to glean useful information from this material, as will those interested in aspects of business or leisure travel in the decades before the Second World War thanks to the presence of information on first- and second-class passengers.