The German Emigrants Database is primarily an academic research project. The wealth of data available on emigrants provides a very sound basis for research into the historical, social and technical aspects of the history of migration.

The German Emigrants Database can help to make academic statements in connection with:

• the historical course of the various migratory movements
• social statistical analyses of emigrants
• the distribution of emigrants in terms of origin
• the routes taken and migratory movements of emigrants
• a number of questions linking various intercultural factors.
  

The German Emigrants Database also provides scientists and academics with statistically prepared data material for research purposes. There is a fee for this service. The data is mainly taken from the digitally recorded passenger manifests of the emigrant ships stored in the German Emigrants Database. Depending on the data quality for each particular year, the following research fields can be called up:

Personal data:
Sex
Age distribution
Marital status distribution
Ability to read and write
Disabilities