•After World War I, Passports were not mandatory again until 1941
•Passports were still not required for travel to Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean islands (this did not change until c. 2007)
•In the 1980s the State Department improperly destroyed about 50% of the passports issued from 1925 to 1965
–Records destroyed: Routine passport applications for native born citizens, routine renewal applications
–Records retained: applications for foreign born citizens, registration applications, applications for native born citizens with secondary evidence of birth
•All passports applications from 1966 to today should still exist
Where can I find passports for March 1925 and earlier?
–FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2185145)
–Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1174/)
–National Archives catalog (https://catalog.archives.gov/)
The Freedom of Information Act is the law that allows you to request information held by the US Federal government, subject to specific exemptions. One of those is privacy, which is why you cannot request the passport records of someone who is still living. However, if a person is deceased, those privacy protections no longer apply and anyone can request a copy of old passport applications.
Send your FOIA request via email to the State Department at PPT-Public-FOIARequests@state.gov
If the person was born less than 100 years ago make sure to include proof of death (death certificate, SSDI printout, photograph of gravestone.)
Provide date of death if known to help limit the search. Although you can edit the specific language of your request, make sure to include the text that is in italics.
Sample Request
Pursuant to FOIA, I request any passport applications on file for the individuals listed below. Please include any documents or other materials included with the passport applications.
All of the individuals listed are deceased and were born more than 100 years ago.
Meyer Cohen. Born: 24 August 1880 in Vienna, Austria. He traveled on passport 36189 in 1949. There may have been additional passports.
Teresa Papio née Russo who was born on 8 June 1886 in Rome, Italy. She died in 1968.
Arthur Thompson, born 17 October 1908 in Connecticut. He died on 8 May 2001.
I swear that the above information is true under penalty of perjury.
Full Name
Full Mailing Address
The Freedom of Information Act allows a US Federal Agency about a month and a half to respond to you. Due to resource constraints, requests always take longer than that. The first 100 pages and two hours of search time are free, meaning that there are almost never situations in which you should be assessed fees.
In the mid-1990s the State Department started scanning all new passport applications. This means that if the person you're interested in only had passports issued since then the passports are easily retrievable and you may receive a copy in a few months.
The State Department also has a computerized index starting in 1978, which makes it easier for them to retrieve passports issued between 1978 and the mid-1990s. For passports issued from 1925 to 1978 there is an index, but it is not computerized. The searches are therefore carried out in a very cumbersome manner. Unfortunately experience has shown that you may have to wait for several years before you receive passports from this era.