Does anyone know how to trace persons overseas?

Question:

Does anyone know how to trace persons overseas?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Living people or dead people?

Living people you track through http://www.infobel.be

Dead people you track through a variety of sources, depending on the country and the time frame. For most of western Europe, the Roman Catholic Church holds a large chunk of the vital records. For centuries it was the obligation of the parish priest to record all births, deaths and marriages in his town or parish...even if the people weren't Catholic. This is especially true in Spain, Portugal, France, much of Switzerland, Poland, Italy, and much of Germany. The Netherlands, parts of Germany, parts of Switzerland, Austria-Hungary and Scandinavia were smart enough to keep separate civil registers. Belgium is too new of a country to be part of that history...and yet they're the furthest behind in organizing their 180 years of records and releasing them on the internet.

Another thing you need in order to track people from Europe to America is passenger records. You'll find a good majority are saved from 1840 onward...and a skimpy collection exists from 1830-1840. Before that...totally hit and miss. Records from ships arriving at the Port of New York between 1830-1892 are primarily found at http://www.castlegarden.org
Records from 1892-1924 are primarily at http://www.ellisisland.org
There are other sites that house passenger lists, such as from Hamburg, Naples and Trieste. But you'll need to subscribe to one of the larger services like Ancestry.com or else use your library's portal to Heritage Quest in order to access those.

Finally, use your local library wisely. They have several indices of foreign records, such as Germans to America, Dutch to America, Wurttemberg Emigration Index, Alsatians to America, etc. They help you focus your search, find your ancestor on one of the gazillion passenger lists and give you dates to work with in your search.