[BITList] Finding Merchant Seamen - general

[John Feltham]

FYI.


Merchant ships of Britain and its colonies are all registered with the 'British Registrar of Ships and Seamen' who were also responsible for recording their crews.  It now comes under the MSA and is at Swansea.

Several years ago the 'Registrar of British Ships and Seamen' sold most of their archives to the Maritime Museum in Newfoundland, with a small amount (those years ending with 5) to Greenwich Maritime Museum.  These archives include all surviving original crew lists, accounts of voyages and log books.

They also placed on microfiche copies of their Port Ship Registers and made them available to local institutions.  For example, King's Lynn has a full set recording all the ships registered in her port, and this includes details of the ship, and her many owners.

British ships were, and still are, owned in shares - 64 per ship.  This was introduced to reduce the personal risk on each ship when ship losses through poor navigation and bad weather made shipping a very risky business.

The Master was often offered a share (to ecourage him to bring the cargoes hope qiuicker) and many ships Masters were also classified as the ship's Official Owner, even though he may only have had one share.  This was because many owners may have been ordinary businessmen and appreciated the Master's knowledge of ship's law, and business

Kew has some material on individuals.
They also have two excellent podcasts (quite long) which I will sent separately.
If you have your ancestor's Dishcarge Book number or any certificate number, this will help your searches.

Brief note on merchant marine certification: 
There are certificates for Engineering, Radio, and Deck.  The latter includes 2nd. Mate, Mate and Master.
there were/are 3 trading areas
Home Trade which is around the UK and to the near Continent.
Middle Trade which includes the northern Baltic and the Mediterranean.
Foreign Trade which covers the whole world.

The Deck certificates are for the different trading areas and generally speaking, no formal examination was sat for Home Trade unless carrying passengers. An Exemption was given, based on experience at sea, and I have not been able to find any record of these.
I will add sources for certificates on my next email


Census returns (from 1861, I think) will record a ship away from the U.K. with her full compliment, but are not always easy to find.  Try entering the ship's name under Parish.
This will include some brief detail of the ship, and where she was on the census day.

Ships in the U.K. will be found by searching through the Port census returns.

For crew lists etc., you need 
1.  any names of the ships your ancestor sailed on,  and then using the CLIP project, you can find their Official Number which is unique to every British registered merchant ship and remains with the ship even if she changes her name.  

2. the Official Number is essential for searching the Newfoundland archives online,  and because often, over many decades, and even at the same time, a popular name may be used often.  The Official Number identifies the specific ship.


There are some good Australasian sites recording ship visits and some crews which I will add.

Lloyds Lists record information about ships insured by them (initially) and later all British merchant ships.
Their American counterpart also records ships visiting America, and that database is freely searchable online and includes the Masters.