Records Indexes & Bibliographies
Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (PILI) by Call Number: Reference CS68 .P36 1981Abbreviation PILI. Also called Filby. Covers published lists. Description: "A Reference Guide to Published Lists of about 500,000 Passengers Who Arrived in America in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth & Nineteenth Centuries." The most important source for ship and immigration list information. It is a name index to thousands of passenger lists which have been published in books or articles. Covers passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The cumulative supplements contain thousands of additional records:1982-85 Supplement, 4 vols.; 1986-1990, 3 vols.; 1991-1995, 3 vols.; 1996-2000, 3 vols.; 2001-2005, 3 vols. Use the index and supplements to identify a published source. Note: do not neglect the supplements; they cover newly published resources. Once a published source is identified, use DELCAT Discovery to see if the source is available in this library.
See PILI Example.
The Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (PILI) is available online in the paid subscription to Ancestry.com. It is not available in Ancestry Library Edition.
- Passenger and Immigration Lists Bibliography, 1538-1900 (PILB)Call Number: Reference CS47 .F54x 1988This is a list of several hundred published ship and passenger lists which have not yet been indexed in the Filby PILI. These lists will be indexed as more PILI supplements are published. Index includes places and ethnic or national groups. Describes the Swedish passenger lists included in Scharf History of Delaware.
How to Use: Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (PILI)
Find: Peter Pfister or Pfester or Phister (modern spelling is Feaster) who was traveling with his son Jacob. They arrived at the Port of Philadelphia before the American Revolution. Go to:
Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (PILI). 3 vols. and supp. Edited by P. William Filby. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Co., 1980.
Location: Morris Library - Reference (Ref CS68 .P36 1981 and CS68 .P362)
Index is in volume 3, look for Pfister:
Key to information:
Name; Age (n.a. = no age); Port of arrival; Year of arrival; Number designating published source; Page number
Consult the list of sources in PILI. 9041 is
Strassburger, Ralph Beaver.
Pennsylvania German Pioneers; A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808.
Passenger Lists in Strassburger
There are three sets of passenger lists:
- List A: Captains of ships lists of passengers
- List B: Signers of the oath of allegiance
- List C: Signers of the oath of abjuration (An oath of abjuration is a sworn statement renouncing a former allegiance.)
All men aged 16 and older were required to take both an oath of fidelity and an oath of abjuration.
Pages 611 and 613 are lists for the ship Brothers, 30 Sept 1744, that have the names Peter or Jacob Pfister.
A = List of Men's Names and Ages, Imported in the ship Brothers, Capt Wm Muir, from Rotterdam. 30 Sept 1754.
B = List of Foreigners, imported in the Ship Brothers, Capt, Muir, from Rotterdam. Qual. 30th Sept 1754.
C = At the State House at Philadelphia, the 30th September, 1754.
List C includes the information:
7 Roman Catholicks, 23 Mennonites, 250 Souls, 210 Freights. 101 Qualified. [From the] Palatinate & Mentz
“Qualified” indicates the number of adult males who signed the oaths
Jacob Pfister is also listed on page 609, which is not in the index.
Genealogy Resources at the University of Delaware Library
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