The United States was for the whole of the 19th Century and much of the 20th a
popular destination for migrants, and many Debenhams took part in this. As the
volume of migrants grew a formal system of processing and recording them was needed,
and in 1855 a centre for this was set up at Castle Garden (formerly known as Castle
Clinton) at the southern tip of Manhattan, in the area now known as Battery Garden.
This eventually proved insufficient to handle the volume of migrants arriving
and in 1892 the operation was transferred to Ellis Island, in New York Harbour,
where it remained until final closure in 1954.
Lists of immigrants have been maintained by the Ellis Island authorities, and many
ships' manifests have also been preserved. Based on this information, a list of
Debenham immigrants has been extracted, and is available for download. This and
other documents referenced on this page are in the form of Adobe Acrobat files,
and you will need the Acrobat Reader software to view and print them. This software
is available free for all current operating systems. Click on the button for a
link to the Adobe site.
"Debenham Immigrants to the USA" (16 Kilobytes) - Download
The major records of US inhabitants
are the federal censuses, and these took place every ten years from 1790 onwards.
There are Debenhams included in censuses from 1820 until 1940 (the most recent
available to researchers). Unfortunately the records for the 1890 census were
almost completely destroyed by fire in 1921, with only a few fragments remaining.
Complete lists of Debenhams in the 1820 to 1930 federal censuses, with
the exception of 1890, are available for download. The early censuses, from 1820
to 1870, contain few Debenham entries, and these are listed in one document below;
from 1880 onwards there is a separate document for each census year. The 1940 census
entries will be added when indexing is complete.
"Debenhams in the 1880 Federal Census" (15 Kilobytes) - Download
"Debenhams in the 1900 Federal Census" (16 Kilobytes) - Download
"Debenhams in the 1910 Federal Census" (17 Kilobytes) - Download
"Debenhams in the 1920 Federal Census" (21 Kilobytes) - Download
"Debenhams in the 1930 Federal Census" (23 Kilobytes) - Download
