Emigration out of Schleswig-Holstein, 19th century

News and Updates

18 years of rootdigging : 2002 - 2020

more than 111,111 now (March 4, 2019)

Files were updated and substantially added to


(April 15, 2020)
(Nov. 11, 2019)
(July 15, 2019)
(March 4, 2019)

Now also as PDF-files !!

May I draw your attention also to the Q-file, in which I have added, following the Q-names, a list of "questionable" emigrants, the lost souls who may have drowned or disappeared in some other way. I believe that half of them were emigrants who never reported back to their families in the fatherland. Some 5,500+ individuals.

I think I can claim now that I have listed a net value of 100,000 native Schleswigers and Holsteiners who really emigrated, plus an additional 10 % for errors that there may be, and people that I know did not emigrate from Schleswig or Holstein, but from other places. Many soldiers who were meant to serve here in SH but who preferred to follow other calls. Persons I found on passenger lists, who I added just because I saw no good reason to disregard the information that I had before me. The errors : double namings due to different sources. People who were given a permit but then had second thoughts and stayed, and a few who returned to Schleswig-Holstein for good, after having emigrated.

Of the estimated total of 250,000 people who left from here between 1830 and 1930, 100,000 constitute more than a solid third.

Refinement of new and old data is in steady progress. Thousands more to come, in irregular intervals. Stay "tuned" !

Emigration: leaving one country to settle and to live in another.
Immigration: entering a country to live there, coming from another.

There is, of course, more information available in my files than shown here, like location and source. I have a lead on the very most of the emigrants' families that are listed. I offer to do further research over here. Also for persons that do not figure in this file, as I get around the archives a lot and might know where to look for them. So do not wait until they are shown in my lists. Just ask.

How to go from here in case ...

You found a person who you were looking for : contact me by e-mail for more details that I might volunteer and for terms and possibilities of further research. See Contact-button below.

You could not find anyone who seems to be your ancestor : contact me by e-mail, giving details of that person. I will contact you when I have found a lead on him or her. (kl.struve@gmx.net)

To avoid a misunderstanding : "Accused (in 1880) of emigration ... " does not mean that the emigration was in 1880. It may have happened a decade earlier. It means exactly what it says: there was an accusation in that year. And it does not say that there were no other accusations in other years, either. Accusing someone and trying him for something could also be done without that person being present.

The list is in alphabetical order, but not so within a family-name. So if you look for Hinrich Kroeger, scroll to "Kroeger" and take a look at all the Kroegers you find in the first column. Your Hinrich may be listed there as Claus Hinrich or Hinrich Carl, for example.

Mind the "Umlaut" (diphthong) - ö = oe, ä = ae, ü = ue. C.. may be K.., K.. may be C..
Be aware that a name may have been written in many possible variations.
For first names, please take a good look at "Names", see button below.

There is a slight inaccuracy with the countries : where the record said "America", I substituted the USA, by habit. In a very few cases, maybe Canada or Mexico were the destination of emigration. Maybe even South America. My apologies. When no destination was given, I used the USA as a preset. I guess this will prove right in over 90 % of all cases. But this means that Australians, South Africans, and all other researchers will have to go by the emigrant's name rather than by the destination of his emigration given in my lists.

The years of birth were not always verified through cross-reference. Allow for errors.

Most of the applicants who were denied a permit for emigration will have found a way to leave the country, anyway. Few of those who were given a permit had second thoughts and stayed. Even fewer returned to Schleswig-Holstein for good, after having emigrated.

Abbreviations for countries are self-explaining or can be derived from the text itself.

Sources: printed media, information by fellow researchers, ancestral charts available in libraries and genealogical societies, correspondence, passenger lists, other relevant contemporary records of all sorts, and applications for permission for emigration. These applications were found in the Landesarchiv Schleswig, mainly in the sections there 57 - 60, 65.2, 80,168, and 309.