Genealogy Chat

Hi, thanks for all this info, I'm nudging for when I have more time.

Duncan

Hi Christine

Yes I did go to Richmond last time and I must agree that it was lovely there. I do need to go sometime to see the Palaces etc so will organise a trip all in one.

Cowslip

Hello Cowslip,

The nice thing about the records office is that it isn't actually in "London proper". It's not far from Kew Gardens, Richmond and the river - all of which are lovely. I'm sure it would be worth it if you decided to "brave it" !

Hi Christine
Thanks for that information on Muster Books it sounds really useful. Trouble is having an inbuilt dislike for London I doubt that I will get there. The last time I was in london was in 1983 so we shall see...thanks anyway as you say it may turn up somewhere.
Cowslip

If you can get to the National Archives in Kew, you can actually see the original Ship's Muster Books, in which mariners were recorded as they came on board ship. Records of events during the voyage were kept, including their pay and any deductions made, i.e: "slop cloths 2d". Don't ask me what slop cloths were for!

Some of the books include a description of the man concerned. My 3xg.grandfather was apparently 5' 6", had brown hair, blue eyes and pock marked skin.

You can also follow them back through their career because the books show which ship they came from. Mine was apparently on The Victory for 10 days. It was in port at Southampton after it's sailng days were over, and used to board mariners awaiting their next ship. He appears on the muster book.

I would imagine all this information is now online, but how you go about finding it I have no idea.

Hi Cowslip,

I didnt find one of my men as his surname started with H but I emailed the National Martime Museum with his name and they emailed me back the next day to say they had found his details and I sent for his Certificates.

There is also this link which I have found many of my Mariners on

http://library.mysticseaport.org/initiative/ShipRegisterList.cfm

Click "Search Ships Registers"

Also Findmypast now have crew lists on which were transcribed by CLIP.

Good Hunting
Lynn

Hi Lynn

Great thanks very much, I had found the Guildhall site yesterday but hadnt found the correct section and came away confused, but you have cleared it up for me with this direct link to the right section. I have found the entry for one William Tuckett Lee b1841, I know he sailed "The Fanquia" and was lost at sea off Canada and have the newspaper report but nothing else, so now I know his Index number I can follow that up. The other one is a Humphreys which is one of the letters not indexed yet but I will be able to contact them now I know where.

Didnt know about the CLIP site so will have a look there too.

Thank you very much. :)
Cowslip

Hi

Cowslip what are your Master Mariners Surnames??

Here is a link which may be useful for Captains where some information has been put on line

http://www.history.ac.uk/gh/

Scroll down to Indexes to Lloyd’s Captains registers. If you find your person and send for it then it gives the ships trained on and you can work from there. I sent for a couple from the National Maritime Museum and gained a lot of info from the Master and Mate Certificates I received.

Also CLIP can be useful
http://www.crewlist.org.uk/ - click on clip finding aids on the left hand side.

Good hunting
Lynn

Hi Everyone thanks for the excellent suggestions.

Alison: Will look to Lloyds I think that they keep the records of the registration as a Master Mariner now that you have reminded me, but I have never checked so thanks for the reminder. I am not sure where he was based. He was born and lived in Caernarfonshire so I guess he will have worked out of either Portmadog or Caernarfon or Liverpool all of which have Maritime Museums and local records offices so good place to start thanks.

Hi Mike: I had thought of the National Archives and looked but decided that i just couldn't afford to do detailed looking at the time. Now that you have told me how succesful you were I will make the investment I think. I know from some letters that he sailed all over the world, this would have been around 1850,s.

Hi Cathy: Thank you for the reference I have had a look but nothing so far I am grateful for the pointer though, again I guess I will have to go to the local archives or Museums for this.

Thanks to everyone though for the kind thoughts in replying and assisting me. :)

Hi,

The Coal Mining History Resouce Centre is a good site to start you off.

http://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/home/

Cheers,

Cathy

The National Archives have lots of shipping and mariners records. After drawing blanks searching all sorts of resources to find out about my great grandfather from North Shields I contacted the National Archives and splashed out on some paid research.
The results were wonderful in that I found out that great grandfather Robert was the mate of a ship in 1893 that put into Cadiz where he was discharged from the vessel. He was taken to a hospital in Cadiz and sadly died the following day of heart disease athe age of 29 leaving a widow and two baby daughters in North Shields.
I was provided with details from the records of ships he had sailed on and the record of his death in Cadiz.
Unfortunately the ships log of that voyage has not survived but I believe hundreds of others have.
I felt it was money well spent after my years of searching!

Mike

hi there,
Have quite a few on my tree too. I think lloyds of London keep records of ships. Also if you have a place where they came into port, the ports kept these records and sometimes you can be lucky and find them at the local archives where the port is. You don't say where they were based?

nudge for later

Great thanks for the detailed instructions Diane really appreciate it.
Cowslip

You're most welcome. Sorry, was short on time when I sent you the first message. Here are the detailed "finding" instructions.

Google Rootsweb. At the google page, click on "Genealogy Mailing Lists".

At that page, under "finding mailing list", type "mariners"

It will provide two options. I actually don't remember which one I chose ... whether it was British or just mariners. Don't think it really matters.

Click on one, and then follow the directions to subscrbe. Choose the "d" option for digest. It will send all the correspondence on one e-mail, instead of several individual ones.

Cheers,
Diane

Hi Diane

Lovely thank you very much for those helpful hints, I don't really know about Rootsweb I have used it a few times but hadn't thought about it for this so it was a timely reminder, especially if it is such an active subject. Maybe there is a Coal Miners section too as I have lots of them inhabiting my tree.

Thanks again
Cowslip

I also had a Master Mariner in my tree and luckily for me, I think after googling MM, I came up with the Rootsweb mariners site. Just log in to Rootsweb and sign on to receive the Digest version. It's basically what we have here - people helping people, but it's mariner related. They send info directly to your e-mail box, and almost every day, there's some discussion or other. I've picked up so many hints on searching for my MM, including sending away for his papers. Some are of no relevance, which I just delete, but others are just full of hints. You can post your questions and someone will get back to you very quickly.

I've also joined the railway one as well, but seldom do I receive anything on that one - disappointing.

Diane

I have several Master Mariners in my tree. I do not know much about researching this area so a couple of questions.
1. Where do I go to find out info on how they actually became Masters. Process etc.
2. Presumably it was practise for Ships Captains to keep logs of their trips. Were logs generally kept and archived, how would I go about trying to find any logs given that I don't actually know the names of any of the vessels. Is there some way of searching under their name rather than vessel name? A central archive/museum link?
3. Having said that I think I know the name of one vessel so really the same question as above but for a named ship.

I hope that someone can give me some pointers and would appreciate any comments really.
Kind regards
Cowslip