Ancestry.com has just released a database of 2.5 million names from the Hamburg passenger lists 1850-1934. Hamburg was a main port of exit for many immigrants from Eastern Europe and Germany coming to North America. This is the first time that this database has been made publicly available on the Internet.

However, it should be noted that only the years 1890-1913 have been indexed so far even though all of the images for 1850-1934 are available. If you do not find your ancestor in a search by name, try browsing the images by year. It should also be noted that these records are in German.