Navigating Dominican Republic’s Archive Website ~ Immigrant Entry Database – Entradas de Inmigrantes

The last segment that I want to cover is the best of all the catalogs available on the Dominican Republic’s National Archives by far that can be found here.  I love this database because it contains people from all over the world who visited, stayed to live, or maybe have left.

I have found people who came to the island that survived the Holocaust, there are many Lebanese who migrated here due to persecution from the Ottoman Empire, many people from different Caribbean Islands, United State citizens, Haitians, Canadians, Africans, yes just about everyone. The best thing is that many contain PHOTOS of ancestors.  I was surprised to find a few more pictures of my great grandfather on this website as we only had one image of him.

The best thing about this website is that it is very easy to navigate.  So let’s say that all you have an ancestor’s name.  As you can see from the image below, the default is set to “Todos” which means All. Just remember when using countries that you must translate it into Spanish and then search.  So I typed in Siria which means Syria. This can be used for Lebanese (Libano in Spanish) too. If you read up on history, you’ll discover that these two regions are very much intertwined together.

So I typed Siria and the following list came up. Notice that even if it appears in the name, it will pull up the individual.  This is why I love this search feature. The first entry is actually of someone from Haiti.

Search Results

Now look to the right under Imagen; this means images. When you click on the document, you’ll discover a lot on the individual such as how long they’ve been in the country, where did they come from, how did they arrive, where do they currently live, their age, color of eyes, weight, etc. You may also discover images of family members you thought were not available!  So yes this is by far the best search.  The below view is of Abraham Acta. Not all documents contain photos and not all of the documents have been uploaded, however discover your ancestors in this database is by far the best genealogical find. I’m sure that whomever is related to this individual and is doing genealogy research will be happy to find this record.  I’m looking forward to seeing them add more immigrants to this view.  It’s like having a small Ellis Island available to you.

Abraham Acta

To close the image, click to the side or background and it will automatically close. Let’s try another one. This time I’m going to type in a family name, Cartagena.  When I type this in, 3 entries come up.  Two are for Americanas and the last is for Puertoriquena. So anyone from Puerto Rico or even Cuba searching your ancestry and you discover that your ancestors mysteriously disappear may discover that their family member went island hopping.

The most important thing is that if you discover one document on a list, make sure you got them all. In the Dominican Republic, you were required to re-register annually and pay a small fee to remain on the island until you became a citizen. So I have found pictures that no one realized were there such as that of my great grandfather and step-grandfather.  If you get an error message for your search results, this simply means that they have no records with what you entered so try something else.

Now type in “PUERTORRIQUENA”, you don’t need to have the tilde over the “N”.  Notice there are pages upon pages of image.  Now to visit the next page of name, click on the next number, do not use the arrows until you have reached the last page, which in this case is page 5. Once you’ve done this then you can click on the double “>>” to move to page 6.

This is the only time you click on these arrows or you’ll be missing pages of information.  This is the last update for the Archivo General de la Nacion from the Dominican Republic. I hope that my posts have been helpful to you in your research.