— Family History, Sources —

Passport Treasures

April 9, 2018

Did your ancestor have a passport? You might be surprised at how much information you can glean from both the application and the passport itself. What treasures can you discover if you are lucky enough to find either the application and/or a passport of an ancestor?

  • Name of applicant
  • Birthdate or age
  • Birthplace
  • Date of application or issuance of passport
  • Marital status
  • Father’s or husband’s name, birth date or age, birthplace, residence (Remember if a woman traveled with either her father or husband, she was not required to have her own passport. She was, however, included in the application. Passports issued to women under their legally preferred name didn’t come into existence until the late ‘20s and early ‘30s.)
  • Wife’s name
  • Date of immigration
  • Date of naturalization and where and what court
  • Ship information
  • Possible information about children and other relatives
  • Occupation
  • Current residence and length of residency
  • Destination and reason for travel
  • Physical description (With no photograph, this may be the only hint of what they looked like.)
  • Photograph (Required after December 21, 1914)

You can access both applications and passports at the U.S. National Archives (NARA) under Passport Applications, https://www.archives.gov/research/passp ort. You can also read on the NARA website about the history of passports, types, limitations, and how to access the microfilms of registers and indexes. The collection covers Oct. 1795 – Mar. 1925. The U.S. Department of State has passport applications from Apr. 1925 to the present. What kinds of information can you find about your ancestors on either an application or passport?

Passports were originally valid for two years or less, so you should research several different years covering the individual’s entire lifetime. Multiple applications may provide conflicting information but each application provides clues to research that person.

Passports were recommended but not required for many years. Exceptions include August 19, 1861, to March 17, 1862, during the Civil War; May 22, 1918, until the formal termination of World War I in 1921, by treaties. Passports have been required since June 21, 1941. Aliens were generally ineligible for passports. Usually, the U.S. government only issued passports to U.S. citizens. [Source: ancestorhunt.com]