Genealogy Chat

Have just discovered that there are great records for this profession but none are online that I can find. Does anybody have the CD's with the bindings etc that is willing to do a look up?

I am also trying to find information of ancestors who were Thames Watermen and Lightmen named SHOLL, if anyone can be of help! Carol

There is a webb site www.parishregisters(.)com (remove the brackets) which has loads of information on Thames Watermen and parish registers online around that area. Hope this helps, Audrey

If you subscribe to the roots mailing list for canal people, there is a lady there who has been busy transcribing waterman and she will help you no end, leave a general message and if I remember right it's Sheila who you want, sorry can't remember her surname. Elaine

I have bindings back to 1692 for Thames watermen/lightermen and reassignments but at the moment for some reason my acrobat reader isnt working. You must go to Dockland Ancestors (same site as parishregisters.com) and read all the info freely available on there about watermen/lightermen. To be honest, if you have some watermen, you probably have dozens if not hundreds (I have hundreds). They were close knit, interbred and passed the trade round the family. Through the bindings I have just proved a link back to Sir Walter Acton who was an MP in 1600! - he apprenticed his son to vintners and his grandson went on to be a waterman - through the apprenticeship records Ive traced back my late Victorian lighterman to aristocracy, with the help of a distant cousin - the quarterage payments at Guildhall and the pay records of Deptford Docks, and through wills. You may also like to look at oldbaileyonline as lightermen were quite renown for 'borrowing' the odd barrell or bale from the ships they unloaded. My own GGFx4 suddenly ceased paying his lightermen quarterage payments when he was 55 and set himself up as a tobacconist (say no more!). Fascinating stuff and do go to James Legon's Dockland Ancestors site to read up on it. James also has dockland church baptisms transcribed (ongoing) with details not available anywhere else on line and very handy they are. James will do a look up for a surname across the whole of the bindings for you - cant remember the cost - a while back they had an offer for £6 or something (Rob Cotterell transcribed the bindings and info that are available on cd). You can buy cds, books, lots of stuff on watermen in James' shop there.

Does anyone know what information you need to start looking at Watermen? I have relatives name and approx age from census, but will I need an exact date of birth? Our local library has microfiche records for Thames Watermen but have not looked at them yet so don't know exactly what info they contain. Maybe other libraries hold similar records. Julie

Have you visited the London Docklands museum. Well worth it. If not see via their website. Julie

Julie, most apprentices were bound at the age of 14-17 - so you can add those years to his year of birth to get an idea of when to look for the binding. The master's name will be given, the date of binding, the place of binding and the completion date (or other remark, like 'drowned', 'ran away', 'went to America' 'was dishonest' - its all interesting stuff. Sometimes if the master died or simply moved or didnt get on with the boy he would be reassigned and there are reassignment records. The master can be a woman as the master was basically responsible for the moral and social welfare of the boy. The apprentice would often move in with the masters family and you can read on James site the requirement re food to be given, etc. to the apprentice. Of course MANY of them were assigned to a family member, father, uncle, cousin, brother etc. and that when the records are really helpful. You will also find the interbreeding patterns with many apprentices having a second name which is clearly the surname of another family of watermen.(in my own lot I have familys training other family members and even 200 years on, the same families are training each other and using each others surnames as middle names. The apprenticeship was for 7 years. After two years there should be an affidavit where the apprentice would give his baptism and date of birth and if you are lucky an addy! (later on there was an 'over age boy' apprenticeship which lasted about 2 years). Apprentices were not supposed to marry - if one did like one of mine - the apprenticeship is apparently suspended as that poor guy took 15 years to complete. You will find many of the apprentices marry very shortly after their apprenticeship is completed - I have several marrying literally days after completion. If you find big gaps in the apprenticeship period it may be he was pressed into naval service - as the navy valued the experience of these chaps. If you look at the dockland ancestors site you can see some petitions from employers of corporate watermen against their impressment into naval service - interesting stuff! James has also written a little booklet about tracing Watermen ancestors which you can buy on line.

I can't believe I've just seen this thread. I had a marriage cert come through yesterday, and the occupation of one of the fathers is yep, you guessed it, waterman. Thanks Heather and everyone else for the info you've posted here- it's really interesting and I can now go and potter about all those sites! Laura x

Thanks Heather for all that info. I didn't realise it would have so much detail - hope I can find my Thomas Colkett in the records! Sorry havn't replied earlier but had to go out. Thanks again. Julie

Only thing with mine, is he;s in Cornwall, not the Thames. Grrr! Laura

Have just added a message re watermen , see higher on page. hope it might help.

wow thanks the parsihregister site is where i found out about the waterman etc but to find records on there they say to buy the CD which is what I was trying to avoid from Australia. I have serched the baptism records but really want to go through the actual waterman records. I will try the other suggestions too. Thanks ppl!

Thanks Elaine for roots mailing list have just subscribed!

The Guildhall Library has a lot of records from the Waterman and Lightermen company

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Suzanne, just caught up with this - you dont need to buy the cd for the apprenticeship bindings - you can do a search or ask for a search to be carried out - cant remember what they charge - just email James Legon and he will help you.

Oh Thanks Heather! Just catching up myself on the community, I shall do that, of course coming across more spread across the family so may buy the cds anyway