What immigration records exist for Friedrich Trump (Donald Trump's grandfather) from Germany to the United States?
Executive summary
Frederick (Friedrich) Trump appears in 19th‑century U.S. immigration records as an arrivals passenger to New York in October 1885, and later German administrative records show Bavaria ordered his expulsion in 1905 for evading compulsory military service; additional documents such as a translated 1905 plea to the Bavarian prince and a U.S. passport application have also been reported in secondary sources [1] [2] [3] [4]. The surviving documentary trail is thus a mix of U.S. passenger manifests and German archival items; some claims in modern retellings draw on those same documents but vary in emphasis [1] [5] [3].
1. Arrival at Castle Garden — the passenger manifest record
Contemporary reporting and compiled secondary sources identify Friedrich Trump as arriving in New York from Bremen aboard the steamship Eider, departing October 7, 1885 and arriving at the Castle Garden immigrant depot on October 19, 1885, where U.S. immigration listings record him (often as “Friedr. Trumpf”) and place him on a manifest line referenced in modern accounts [1] [6] [7] [4].
2. Name variants and the manifest entry details
The manifest entry that researchers point to lists a German‑born “Friedr. Trumpf,” age 16, last residence Kallstadt, reflecting common late‑19th‑century spelling and transcription variation; reporting that cites line numbers or transcriptions (for example “line 133”) derives from these manifest copies and indexed Castle Garden databases [4] [1] [7].
3. Family ties in the records: joining relatives already in New York
Multiple accounts note that Friedrich’s arrival joined an established family link in New York — specifically his sister Katharina had emigrated earlier — a detail that appears in biographical histories and contemporary summaries tied to the passenger/settlement context rather than a separate immigration registry entry [8] [7].
4. German archival records: the 1905 expulsion decree and the plea to Prince Luitpold
German local archives provided a council letter and a formal Bavarian order from 1905 that directed Friedrich Trump to leave Bavaria for failing to complete mandatory military service and for not notifying authorities of his earlier emigration; these documents include at least one translated letter by Trump appealing to Prince Regent Luitpold to rescind the expulsion, material first publicized in German press and later translated in English outlets [5] [2] [3].
5. Secondary confirmations and fact‑checking of the deportation narrative
Major outlets and fact‑checking organizations have treated the 1905 file as genuine: tabloid Bild published the archived letter, The Guardian and Harper’s Magazine reported on the decree and translation, and Snopes reviewed the documentation and historical reporting, concluding the deportation order and Trump’s plea are supported by archival sources [5] [2] [3].
6. Additional U.S. documents reported — passport application and later records
Some collectors and genealogy commentators have identified a later U.S. passport application or related U.S. travel documents for Friedrich Trump, which are used to trace his movements after immigration; these items are reported in specialist collections and secondary write‑ups that cite a passport application transcript and link it back to the manifest identity [4].
7. What the sources do not provide here and the limits of available reporting
The assembled reporting supplies a clear passenger manifest entry and German administrative files, but original high‑resolution scans or archival accession numbers for each document are not supplied in the cited summaries here; therefore one must rely on the published transcriptions and translations from sources such as Wikipedia, History.com, Harper’s, The Guardian and Snopes until primary‑source images or repository references are consulted directly [1] [6] [2] [5] [3].
8. Bottom line — the documentary picture
The documentary record that historians and journalists cite consists of the 1885 Castle Garden passenger manifest recording Friedrich Trump’s arrival from Bremen, later Bavarian administrative papers ordering his expulsion in 1905 and his plea to the prince regent, and reported U.S. passport paperwork and biographical records that link these items into a continuous migration story; those are the principal immigration‑related records identified in the reporting [1] [2] [3] [4].