Pennsylvania Department of State, Ships Lists of German Passengers, September 18, 1727-September 25, 1754., This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER LIBRARY: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education., Arranged chronologically by date of ship arrival. Indexed externally, alphabetically by surname of passenger in Volume 3 of Pennsylvania German Pioneers, A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808 by Ralph Beaver Strassburger and William John Hinke (Norristown, 1934). Official records of the arrival of foreign passengers at the port of Philadelphia that were required to be kept by captains of ships importing strangers into the province beginning in 1727. Originally, the captains were intended by the Provincial Council to record the names, occupations, and places of residence of all such passengers. Most of the so-called A Lists, however, give the names of adult male passengers only, though twenty-five captains also recorded the names of women, and children. Three captains gave the names of both men and women while omitting children and sixty-four captains also provided the ages of passengers, though this information was not required. The B Lists consist of the signatures required of the passengers to the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and a declaration of fidelity to the proprietor of the province. These were supposed to include the names of all adult male passengers but contain only the names of adult male passengers who were well enough on the day of the signing to appear at the courthouse. After 1739, the Clerk of Council signed the names of absent passengers. The C Lists contain the signatures of passengers who signed the Declaration of Fidelity and Abjuration that was required by the Act of May 10, 1729. This Act required all male passengers who were at least sixteen years of age to, within forty-eight hours after their arrival, take both an oath of allegiance that acknowledged the supremacy of the King and an oath of abjuration of the authority of the Pope. The abjuration declared impious and heretical that wicked Doctrine and Position that Princes Excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any Authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murthered (sic) by their Subjects . . . (and) that no Foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Power, Jurisdiction, Superiority, Preeminence or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within the Realm of Great Britain or Dominions thereunto belonging. Information usually given on all the lists is the names of the adult male passengers, date of arrival, port of embarkation, and the name of the vessel and its captain. Under the Act passed by the General Assembly on April 8, 1785 for registering German passengers who arrived at the Port of Philadelphia, only a single list giving the names of passengers was required to be handed over by each ship captain to a health officer. With the aid of an interpreter, the health officer was to determine the physical and mental condition of each passenger and report this information to the Register of German Passengers. Beginning in the 1790s, however, the occupation and nativity of passengers may also be found on many lists and from 1805 a physical description of the passenger sometimes appears. The lists dating before the American Revolution only contain the names of passengers from the continent (primarily German, Dutch, Swiss and French), and do not include British subjects whose status remained unchanged by their removal from one part of the Kings dominion to another. Volume 3 of this three-volume set contains a surname index and Volume 2 contains facsimiles of all the signatures appearing on the original B and C Lists.
