Tracing an ancestor who was an immigrant

(The following was extracted from the Public Record Office website: http://www.pro.gov.uk/genealogy/familyfacts.htm#immigrant)

The Public Record Office (see Resources) has resources of interest to anyone tracing ancestors who were immigrants to the UK. In 1793, the regulation of aliens (non-British citizens arriving in Britain) became the responsibility of the Home Secretary. In 1844, he also became responsible for the granting of naturalisation (British citizenship). From this date, the following classes of documents are those most likely to be useful.

Denization and naturalisation papers
For the period 1789–1900, there are papers and files relating to foreigners who were granted denization (permission to settle in Britain) or who became naturalised British citizens. They are arranged into four separate classes:

HO 1: 1789–1871. The class list contains an index of names for the period 1801–1900.
HO 45: 1872–1878
HO 144: 1879–1919. Files in this class are closed for 75 years.
HO 334: 1870–1950. Duplicates of naturalisation certificates.

Certificates of aliens
In class HO 2, there are certificates of the arrival of individual aliens into England between 1836 and 1852. They are arranged under port of arrival and bound into volumes. Each certificate gives the alien's nationality, profession, date of arrival, last country visited and signature. Indexes for the period 1836–1849 are in HO 5/25 to HO 5/32.

Lists of immigrants
HO 3 contains mainly returns of alien passengers drawn up by the master of the ship on which they arrived, between 1836 and 1869. The returns are bound in date order and are not indexed.

Museum of Immigration
The Spitalfields Centre
19 Princelet Street
London E1
Tel: 020 7247 5352