By mid-2008, the records of 18 million immigrants to the UK will be available online.

Tower Bridge, London

The National Archives UK has awarded a license to Ancestry.co.uk to digitize, index and host online the UK Inbound Passenger Lists 1878-1960.This collection is known as the Board of Trade Passenger Lists, Inwards 1878-1960 or BT26 and is useful for all researchers whose immigrant ancestors went to the UK or later left for other countries.

There are some one million pages of records which include those who arrived from destinations outside Europe and the Mediterranean. They are organized by port of arrival and depending on date of arrival, may include such information as name, age, occupation, address in the UK, purpose of journey, name of ship, owner and port of origin.

The for-fee subscription website already includes some 100 million UK and European immigrants who travelled to American from 1820-1960, in addition to records for Canada, Australia and Germany.

If you have questions about this group of records, let me know and I'll try to get the answers. I look forward to reading your comments and answering your questions.