The historical background of the German Emigrants Database is European emigration to North America via German ports. Over 90 per cent of emigrants were bound for the United States of America. Between 1832 und 1974 around 7.2 million people emigrated to the United States of America from Bremen and Bremerhaven alone.

In conjunction with computer scientists from Bremerhaven University, the Historisches Museum Bremerhaven has developed software programs for the German Emigrants Database which can

• collect emigrant data
• quantify and evaluate emigrant data
• permit research into the fates of individual emigrants

Much of the data in the German Emigrants Database was taken from the passenger manifests of the ships on which the emigrants traveled to the United States of America. The passenger manifests are kept in the National Archives of the USA and are virtually complete from 1820 onwards. The data from these lists are electronically recorded in the German Emigrants Database and supplemented by information from other sources.