There is one in every genealogy. Our ancestors came here by ship, some by sail, and some by steam. Our problem is digging them up!
Most of my ancestors came in through New York City, some through Castle Garden, some through Ellis Island. The best way I know to find a ship is to find a naturalization record, a ticket, a letter on the ship's stationery, or a diary of the trip. None of those is very likely, except maybe the naturalization record. The first thing I look for is the census record. That usually tells the year of arrival. From there, I know which way to search, either by soundex index (after 1902 for NY) or by year, which is more difficult.

To search by soundex, code the name, then go to the FHC or NARA and get their soundex index for the port you think your ancestors arrived at. If you have some idea of the age of your ancestor at immigration, that helps a lot. As you are going through the index, make a note of everyone who sounds like they might be your ancestor. A good idea is to make a note of other family members with the same surname, they might have come at the same time, or you might want to check their arrivals at a later time, and you'll at least have the list and the volume number.

The cards on the soundex indexes are easy to read. There are two types, one with the name, age, sex, page and line numbers, and the volume number. Looks something like this:

Smith James 18m 37 12 1849

Then, all you have to do is order the film with volume 1849 (or whatever your card said!).

The other one gives the name, age, sex, name of the ship, group number, and date of arrival. Look for the film with that ship and that date!

When you get the manifest film, don't just go to the page your ancestor is on, look at ALL the pages! You might just find another ancestor, even one with a different name, who was on the same ship. Maybe that's where grandpa met grandma!!! A shipboard romance! Also, check the towns and villages the people came from. There were often groups of people from the same village, who were recruited. Sometimes companies sent people out to recruit workers from Europe. There were churches that sponsored groups of people as well, and it would be good to make a list of all the folks from the same village or area that are on the same ship. Immigrants tended to stick with familiar things, and people from the same area of their country were certainly familiar, even if they never knew them before. You will often find the same names you see on your grandfather's manifest, on the census with your grandfather too! They tended to live close to each other, and to marry each other. They also moved together too. When one family found a better house or apartment, or job, they would go, but a lot of the neighbor families went too!

Check out the ship manifests online as well. You never can tell, you might find someone you didn't expect. After all, someone had to be the first to arrive! Maybe your grandfather came to a certain city or town because he had an uncle who was already there! That's how I found out about my grandfather's uncle Michael. It gave his name on my grandfather's manifest, as well as his complete address, as the person my grandfather was going to stay with. You just might add a new name to you tree that way! If you check the manifests for the earlier years, before your ancestors came, you might see relatives of theirs who were here first!

Here are some websites for ship manifests, and manifest information.

Young Immigrants to Canada - Voyage Over - Allan Line http://www.ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/allan.html

Free Passenger & Immigration Lists Lookups | Ancestral Findings Free Genealogy Lookups http://web.mountain.net/~wfmoney/cd/page10.htm

Ships List
http://www.standard.net.au/~jwilliams/ships.htm

Immigrant Ship Information PASSENGER LISTS ON THE INTERNET http://members.aol.com/rprost/passenger.html

American Plantations and Colonies - Ship Index http://www.primenet.com/~langford/ships/shiplist.htm

KinShips: The Passenger Vessels of Your Immigrant Ancestors: Ships List:
http://www.KinShipsPrints.com

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/5978/Emigration.html

Genealogy Resources on the Internet - WWW/Passenger lists; Ships
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cgaunt/pass.html

The Mariners' Museum
http://www.mariner.org/

Peabody Essex Museum
http://www.pem.org/index.html

Hope these will help you get off to a good start!!

Jan