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Royal Navy, Royal Marines, HM Coastguard, HM Customs & Excise

Research into records of the Admiralty can provide a wealth of biographical information about an ancestor serving in the Royal Navy. What you may find depends to some extent on the date of his service. An Officer is often quite easy to trace. A rating can be difficult to find without the name of a vessel and a rough date until the start of the Continuous Service Engagement Books in 1853. Once you have found him you can often trace his career through successive muster rolls. The ships' logs may give an insight into the daily routine of life on board ship or form a fascinating record of a confrontation at sea. You may find just his name on an early muster roll. You could find a note of his birthplace, his baptismal certificate, a letter from his parents giving permission for his enlistment, comments on his behaviour and a full description, including even the mermaid tattooed on his arm.

Service records of men who enlisted after 1891 are not on public access. However, medal rolls offer a chance of discovering where they were, what part they played in some of Britain's greatest sea battles and can open the way to further research.

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Registration of Merchant Seamen

The Merchant Shipping Act of 1835, with its new regulation requiring Masters or Skippers of all ships to file Crew Lists and Agreements with the Register Office of Merchant Seamen resulted in the Registrar producing lists of seamen extracted from them. These indexes are the method of tracing the careers of merchant seamen often providing a means of cross reference to the relevant logs and crew lists which can provide so much fascinating background - the indexes and registers cover those years from 1835 to 1857.

There are limitations - firstly it should be borne in mind that if your seaman ancestor was born before 1780 or after 1843 your chances of finding his name in these records are poor. Secondly, rules were meant to be broken! Some Masters did not file the documents as they were required to do. Some seamen objected strongly to the system, and used false names. The writing on the documents was often almost illegible, and the spelling was often phonetic. These things combined mean that the registers need careful searching, with thorough checks made on all possible variations in spelling. They are time consuming and tiring to search. Several different series of registers were compiled during the period, each varying slightly in format and in the amount of information they present but can result in a full service record, including destinations of voyages, a physical description of the man, and a small amount of biographical detail.

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Certification of Masters and Mates

The records of the Merchant Navy are full of references to Masters and Mates. The most frequently used source of material relating to Masters and Mates of the mid 19th Century are the indexes created by the Registrar of Shipping and Seamen. 1845 saw the introduction of examinations for Masters and Mates which began as a voluntary system. Following the Marine Act of 1850 it became compulsory for foreign going Masters, and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 extended it to Masters in the Home Trade. As a result there is a wealth of information held in various sources relating to the Certification of Masters and Mates. The records of men compiled by Lloyds were extracted from information held by the Registrar General of Shipping & Seamen. Full information about each man, including place and date of birth, date and place of passing the examination, and full details of all voyages each year, are listed making the tracing of the whole career of a Master or Mate a most rewarding area of research. Applications for certificates can supply vital information including full descriptions, names of next of kin and addresses, together with details of all voyages undertaken before the application for full certification was made.

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Logs, Crew Lists and Agreements

Although a few records exist for periods before 1835 they are of limited us and are for some ports only. The main source of information about ships' voyages and the men who crewed the ships, dates from the 1835 Merchant Shipping Act. Masters of merchant vessels were required to submit a crew list or agreement listing the names of all crew members for each voyage - the lists contain brief biographical information about each man. In some circumstances they can cross reference with Registers of Seamen's Tickets (described elsewhere) and when the two are viewed in connection with each other, it is possible to paint a fascinating picture of a seaman's career, his ships, and the voyages he made. As with all old documents, there are limitations - the system depended on the Master correctly filling in the list, and the seamen giving him the correct information! The series of ships' logs can provide details of the voyage, including any noteworthy events which took place during the course of the voyage. They are a wonderful source for background information into the life of a seaman, but can also hold the clue to the whereabouts of a missing seaman, and explain many other strange events which may have been a source of family rumour handed down through the generations. The availability of the lists, agreements and logs varies according to the time period involved and the archives in which they are held varies between the Public Record Office, National Maritime Museum, local County Record Offices, the office of the Registrar General of Shipping & Seamen, and the Memorial University in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

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The Merchant Navy in WWl and WWll

The records of the two World Wars are a vast and often untapped source of fascinating details which add so much to the research into the life of a relative or an ancestor. Uncovering the service of a father, grandfather or great grandfather is of immense interest because their lives are often so closely entwined with our own. The records relating to the role played by the Merchant Navy in both World Wars can be harrowing, dealing as they often do with sea battles and the defence of Great Britain in times of trouble, inevitably involving great loss of life - maybe the loss of our own relatives. Records of fishermen crewing the armed trawlers protecting these shores from attack, and in their vital mine sweeping operations, provide a vivid picture. For those with a more academic interest in the times of war, the records confirm or deny the stories which have circulated regarding war time action, convoys, submarine warfare and general naval operations and are a rich source of original eye-witness accounts. Information relating to the war-time movement of ships, and the loss at sea of ships in both World Wars, is freely available.

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Ship Registration and Shipping Returns

If your interest lies in the subject of ships rather than the men who sailed in them, the documents relating to ship registration and the various returns of shipping hold a valuable amount of information. The records are not a primary source of information about the men but it is nevertheless possible to find information relating to owners, ship builders and Masters within the documents and they are often overlooked as a source of useful information. Ship registrations will often give a description of the vessel, and a note of the successive owners and masters. Shipping returns cover the movement of ships in and out of British ports, and other overseas ports including ports in America. Records of the Board of Customs also hold valuable information regarding the movement of ships and the series of Outbooks are full of information about the arrivals and departures of ships, cargoes and men. Lloyds List and Lloyds Register are two other valuable sources of information about the movement and fate of vessels which include vessels from earliest days up to the present time.

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Ship Plans and Illustrations

Collections of photographs and paintings of ships have been widely catalogued. It is often possible to find a photograph, painting or engraving of the vessel an ancestor may have sailed in as passenger or crew. Sources of photographs and illustrations are to be found in the extensive catalogue of the National Maritime Museum, and other maritime archives throughout the country. The records of private collectors are a valuable source of ships illustrations. Ships' plans are also widely available and of immense use to those wishing to build models of particular ships, or to produce their own likeness of a particular vessel to add to the background of a seaman ancestor. Many of these sources are not advertised, their owners relying purely on word of mouth to publicise the fruits of their years of dedicated collecting of plans, photographs or illustrations.

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Passenger Lists

The Board of Trade required that lists should be kept of all passengers entering or leaving British ports. These original records survive at the Public Record Office in England. They are fascinating documents but can be a source of great frustration to the researcher hoping to locate the name of an ancestor. They are not indexed! For much of the time they are not even alphabetical. They are often handwritten - the writing at best difficult to read, at worst, illegible. The pages are torn and sometimes missing. The records are filed chronologically according to the port to which they relate. Inbound and Outbound records are held separately. A few lists relate to certain sailings between 1878 and 1888, but the main series of records covers the years between 1890 and 1960. If one is to have any realistic hope of finding the name of a particular passenger, one must know at least two of the following - the port of exit from the UK, the overseas port of entry, the date of sailing and the name of the ship. Without two of those facts, the search will be almost impossible without unlimited time. There are shortcuts however which come through experience of the records and it is often possible to locate the sailing, given patience! What you will find on the list depends greatly on the date on which the sailing took place. Early sailings often give little or no information other than the name of the passenger and the destination. Later lists are goldmines of information including addresses, though again a word of caution - sometimes these addresses are simply that of an hotel or temporary residence used whilst the passenger awaited the arrival of their ship. Photocopies of the lists are available, and logs and photographs can often add to the picture.

Further information regarding these lists, and details held in our own database of Australia bound passengers, are held elsewhere on these pages. They relate at the moment only to those passengers sailing on outbound voyages on Australia bound ships, but also include the names of hundreds of passengers who disembarked at ports en route. The names of those passengers sailing for Australia also appear on Australian passenger lists, and photocopies of these may also be available.

Once they reached Australian shores, what happened to them? DataMarine's contacts in Australia may be able to help! You could find valuable information to help you complete the gaps on a family tree - it may also allow you to trace living relatives who may hold vital information for you! Click here for our Australian genealogical services.

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