EMIGRANTS ARRIVAL: ARRIVALS IN U.S. PORTS
EMIGRANTS SHIPS MANIFESTS FROM 1820 TO 1870

Ships list : Name of the ship ; Port of departure and date when know ; Port of arrival given by date of arrival, when know.
 

An INDEX is available on-line. There is also a partial index listing only the passengers for New-Orleans.

The problem with Belgian emigration is the lost of the originals manifests from Antwerp, the Belgian seaport, except for the years 1855. So I have to gather the information from other sources.

I found some of  those lists of  passengers in
- the Web Site Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild and extracted the Belgian  passengers
- the microfilms for the Port of New York 1820-1870 & Port of New Orleans , available on-line
- partial lists, for the years 1853 and 1854, in the Archives of the Belgian Foreign Ministry.
-  in books (see "sources" for further reference) :
    +   Haven van Antwerpen - Belgische Emigratie 1855
    +   2005 Belges arrivés en Amérique en 1856.
Those books  give a fair account of the emigration from those two years but wants to be completed by departures from non-Belgian harbors and checked with the arrivals in New York and other Sea and Lake ports. 
- The New York Times  "Marine Intelligence" (NYT)columns, for the supposed date of departure from Antwerp or other haven, and other comments found in those lines: usually the number of passengers and sometime sea events.
- indexes from various American Ports for the years 1820-1870

There is also entries from various publications (in Belgian Lace & Dentelle belge for many of them) and sources (see the Notes at the end of each page).

When I found data concerning the arrival of Belgians immigrants without knowing the name of the ship, I put them in the "Unknow" ship, hoping some day to be able to transfer them to their true ship and true year of arrival.

 

Note: The "Downs" was a roadstead in the English Channel off the east coast of Kent, between the North and the South Foreland. The Downs served as a permanent base for warships patrolling the North Sea, and formed a favourite anchorage during heavy weather, protected on the east by the Goodwin Sands and on the north and west by the coast. It has depths down to 12 fathoms (22 m). Even during southerly gales some shelter was afforded, though under this condition wrecks were not infrequent. The Downs lie between the Strait of Dover and the Thames Estuary, so both merchant ships awaiting an easterly wind to take them down the English Channel and those going up to London gathered there, often for quite long periods. It could be quite a dangerous area. The Goodwin Sands were constantly shifting, and were not always adequately marked. Storms could also drive ships onto the shore or onto the sands.