How to access records for Philly’s Washington Avenue Immigration Station
There are a few ways to find the records. Some require payment, and others patience.
Washington Avenue Immigration Station opened 19 years before Ellis Island, welcoming more than one million immigrants from Europe into the United States. Its history, however, became somewhat forgotten.
After learning about Philadelphia’s version of Ellis Island through Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city and region, many readers wondered: How can one access immigration records for the Washington Avenue Station?
Physical passenger records from the immigration station, which was located along the Delaware River at Washington Avenue, are not available. Most files are digitized by the National Archives and Records Administration.
They can be accessed through the administration’s partnership with paid service Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org, which is free but requires an account.
Still, those aren’t the only options.
» READ MORE: Philadelphia’s version of Ellis Island was the Washington Avenue Immigration Station
Accessing records in person
Pennsylvanians can navigate the digital records, for free, at the National Archives Philadelphia location: 14700 Townsend Rd.
Appointments, and patience, are a must, since booking is done via email at [email protected].
Don’t expect to have a researcher do all the looking. Access to both microfilm and the computer research room is self-service. Regardless, staff will be available to help find needed resources, said a National Archives spokesperson.
Philly’s research room is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Names, birthplaces, residences, and birth dates of those who migrated will be needed to find the records.
People outside Pennsylvania can access the digital records, at no cost, at their state’s National Archives location, the spokesperson said.
What information is available?
The National Archives keeps digitized genealogical records of passengers who docked at the Washington Avenue Immigration Station from 1800 to 1945.
The insights can paint a fuller picture of how a person came into the United States, including their nationality, place of birth, ship name, date of entry, and profession. The records also include an immigrant’s age, height, eye, and hair color, and how much money they brought in, as well as their last place of residence and the names and addresses of the relatives they joined upon arrival.
Further digging can even result in finding correspondence, reports, diaries, and case files from the Record Group 85, a collection of files centered on the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
In Philadelphia, the most popular immigrant-related documents are passenger manifests and naturalization records, according to the spokesperson.
“Naturalization was a two-step process that took a minimum of five years,” the spokesperson said. “After entering the United States, a noncitizen could file a “declaration of intention” (“first papers”) to become a citizen. The noncitizen could then file a “petition for naturalization” (“second papers”) after a prescribed waiting period.”
Both the declaration and petition were submitted to a court for consideration. Some of those files can be viewed online at NARA from any computer and at no cost.
Physical copies of those records, and many others, can be requested online, taking up to 16 weeks for delivery.