Several local archives have indexes of seamen from the crew lists and agreements they hold. The format varies - card indexes, printed, or as
part of the catalogue. Some archives have indexes of masters and owners only. Unfortunately, many online indexes at archives work through catalogue systems such as CalmView that are best described as nomadic and user-hostile.
It's worth searching all of them because seafarers often sailed on ships registered in other parts of Britain, not just their own home port. The table below shows the archives which have at least partial indexes.
Anglesey Archives
Part of CLIP data on Findmypast (£), also available at the archives and on this site.
Berwick-upon-Tweed Record Office
RO catalogue includes partial index of crew names, transferred to electronic format by CLIP (at RO).
Bristol Archives
Part of CLIP data on Findmypast (£), also on fiche available from Bristol and Avon FHS (£).
Ceredigion Archives Service
A small number of Aberystwyth ships. Part of catalogue of crew lists, with no search facility but only a few ships so it can be searched quickly.
Devon Archives
Part of CLIP data on Findmypast (£), also available at the archives and on this site.
Dorset History Centre
Crew lists for Dorset ports transcribed by Ancestry (£)
and 20% sample as part of the CLIP data on Findmypast (£).
Flintshire Record Office
Part of CLIP data on Findmypast (£), also bound typescript volumes at the archives.
Glamorgan Archives
CLIP supported project with data on this site and an index of Masters on Bob Sanders' site.
Guernsey Museums and Galleries
Transcripts of crew lists and logs of ships owned by William Le Lacheur.
Hull City Archives, Hull
Online catalogue is searchable by names of individuals on fishing boats.
Liverpool City Archives
Crew lists transcribed by Ancestry (£).
National Archives of Ireland
An index and images of all the Irish crew lists.
National Library of Wales
A transcription of Aberystwyth crew lists is available as a zip file download containing thousands of spreadsheets (!). This data has now been transferred to the CLIP database and is available on this site.
North East Lincolnshire Archives, Grimsby
Online catalogue is searchable by names of individuals, but their web site doesn't work.
Portsmouth City Archives
CLIP supported project with all data available on this site and also on Findmypast (£).
Somerset Archives
Part of CLIP data on Findmypast (£). Aubrey Brown's pioneering index used to be available
on the archives' site but they now have a fancy new site and do not mention shipping at all.
Southampton Archives
Completed CLIP project on Union-Castle crews with data on this site.
Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich
Card index at the archives.
Suffolk Record Office, Lowestoft
Card index at the archives.
West Sussex Record Office
Card index in progress?
The following web sites have databases of seafarer's names:
1915 crew lists
All the crew lists for the year 1915, transcribed by a joint project by NMM and TNA volunteers,
using a CLIP transcription site and technical support.
Swansea Mariners
108,000 entries from Swansea crew lists (at the last visit) on Bryan Richards' site.
Cardiff Mariners
2,200 entries from Cardiff crew lists (at the last visit) on Bryan Richards' site.
Welsh Mariners
23,000 Welsh Master Mariners, Mates and Engineers on Reg Davies' site.
Guernsey crew lists
Stephen Foote's index of Guernsey Crew Lists with 3,000 entries.
Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters
Index from the New South Wales Inwards Passenger lists (includes crew members).
Lloyd's Captains Registers
An index to most of the Lloyd's Captains Registers held by the London Metropolitan Library. Scroll down to find the indexes.
If the seafarer was (or might have been) a Master, Mate or Engineer,
search at The National Archives (TNA) in the registers of certificates (BT 122 - BT 130 and
BT 138), Lloyds Captains’ Register and Engineers’ certificates registers
(BT 139 - BT 142). However, many officers did not have certificates.
As mentioned above, the original copies of Lloyd's Captain's Register are held at
London Metropolitan Archives. The volumes have been indexed and some are available
online.
From 1823, masters of merchant ships over 80 tons were required to carry indentured apprentices. They were recorded by the local customs officers and a
list compiled at the Board of Trade, the index to which is in BT 150 and has been digitised by Ancestry (£).
If the seafarer died at sea, the death may be recorded in the registers
and indexes now held at TNA and listed below:
- Registers of wages and effects of deceased seamen, 1852-1881, 1888-1889 (BT 153, indexed in BT 154);
- Monthly lists of deaths of seamen, 1886-1889 (BT 156);
- Register of seamen's deaths classified by cause, 1882-1888 (BT 157);
- Registers of births, marriages and deaths of passengers at sea, 1854-1890 (BT 158, partially indexed in BT 158/7
and BT 158/8);
- Registers of deaths of British Nationals at sea, 1875-1888 (BT 159);
- Registers and indexes of births, marriages and deaths of passengers and seamen at sea, from 1890 (BT 334);
- General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Returns (RG 32);
- Miscellaneous Returns of Births, Marriages and Deaths: Indexes (RG 43).
TNA has an information page
TNA information - BMD at sea
setting out the details of the registers.
If the death is recorded, it may be possible to obtain a certificate of death from the General Register Office (GRO) - see below.
Findmypast have digitised most of these records.
Scottish seafarers
For seafarers on Scottish ships, ScotlandsPeople has an online index of deaths at sea. On their search page for deaths, select 'Marine register' as the district. You can purchase copies.
The
General Register Office (GRO)
General Register Office
has recorded births, marriages and deaths from 1837 including events at sea.
It appears that not all deaths at sea were reported to the Registrar General until the 1860s.
They were entered into registers similar (but not identical) to those now held at The National Archives (see above). TNA has an information page
TNA information - BMD at sea
setting out the details of the registers, both their own holdings and those at the GRO.
The indexes show the age at death and the ship's name (but not her official number) from 1875 onwards.
You can find out more about these records at
Findmypast (£)
and look up various indexes. There is a charge for viewing the index images.
Death certificates, which are copies of the register entries (and could therefore include details such as the ship's official number),
can be obtained from the GRO by phone, post or online
General Register Office Online Ordering
British censuses were taken every tenth year from 1801, but the names of individuals were
only recorded from 1841. Crews of vessels were included from 1851 using special enumeration forms. Only ships which were in a British port on the night
of the census were included, though from 1861 arrangements were made to include ships which
were at sea in the home trade, Ships in a foreign port on that night were not enumerated.
The complete story is more complicated. Edward Higgs' guide to the census take four pages to describe it. (E Higgs, Making Sense of the Census Revisited, London,
Institute of Historical Research, 2005, ISBN: 300100396X, pp.48-52).
Indexes of British census returns from 1851 to 1911 are available online from various genealogical
publishers including
Findmypast (£)
Ancestry (£)
The Genealogist (£)
If you have an image of a census return for the ship, be sure to look for the ship's official number, which will help in
finding other records, particularly crew lists. This information may be on a separate page ahead of the main image. Unfortunately, some Findmypast images do not include this page.
The ship's port of registry is also useful information (ie her "Port or place to which she belongs",
not the port at which the enumeration was made).
For details of the census returns for ships from a historian's perspective, see Dr Valerie Burton's paper
A floating population
.
If all indexes fail, you can only search through all the records for a
particular port or ship which may have links to the seafarer. This is not recommended.
You may be inspired to start making your own index - if you do, let us know!
CLIP indexes