The Compass is a guide to assist you in your search for immigrant related information. Our aim is to provide you with the best and most up-to-date information available with special emphasis on passenger lists, ships, ship images and descriptions, emigrant and ethnic databases, and resources such as archives, libraries and museums both on-line and off-line. There are in depth descriptions of each site, and some, due to the extensive amount of information, are listed under more than one topic.

Many ports of entry in the United States, and other countries as well, tell a story. We offer letters and diaries written by immigrants, and articles that were published about their experiences. We provide information about specific ships and shipwrecks, some rescues but many whose fate is unknown.

The Compass lists sites on the internet with passenger lists, regardless of the number of passengers. With each site, you are given the ships name, the port and date of departure, and the port and date of arrival, if known. Then if something sounds like a possible connection the Compass links to that site where you will find the actual list. You don't have to go through a number of links to get to a list, only to discover the list you are looking at is not only from the wrong country but perhaps the wrong century.