Japanese Immigration



Many immigrates from countless nations have come to the American shores to start a new life over the centuries. Usually people think of the immigrants coming from Europe, but Asian nations have many of their former citizens coming to the United States for a fresh start. One such group are the Japanese who starting arriving to America in the 1880s.

Many the early Japanese immigrants between 1880 and 1900 were those working in the mines and railroads mostly on the western portion of the country. In fact most eventually settled along the west coast. With new laws coming in 1908 restricting new male immigrants who came for work, the laws did allow their family members to come over to join the men.

The Brigham Young University has placed online their collection of information and records on the Japanese immigration in America from 1887 to 1924.The sources include cemetery records, censuses, obituaries as well as Japanese historians. Some of the key states featured in the collection are Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, some of the states where the new Japanese laborers first settled. Many also first immigrated into Canada.

There is a simple search box. Place a family surname then follow with a given name. You can also just search using a surname. A listing will then appear of all those with that surname along with a given name. Then it has if that person was the original immigrate, or that person’s child or spouse who came later.

Click on a selected name and additional information is available. Their birth year and place are provided. There will be which place they first immigrated to, which could be Canada, besides the United States.

Below each person’s listing will be a tab to select to view the spouse and the children. An excellent addition is the places of residences the person had. It follows by years, exact locations and sometimes including mailing addresses. Then select the occupations tab where the year and type of work the person was doing is listed.

Go to the historical data and an overview of that person’s family work and life will be summarized.

If your have any Japanese ancestors in America or Canada between 1887 and 1924, you need to check out this site.

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