This page explains how to find records of a merchant seafarer
on crew lists of British registered vessels for the period 1861 to 1913.
NB! This means finding the whereabouts of the original documents, so you can order copies.
The documents have not been filmed and there are no on-line sites where the crew lists themselves can be viewed or downloaded.
To trace a crew list which records a seafarer, you will need to know, or find out:
- the name of the ship that they sailed on;
- her official number;
- the year(s) that the seafarer served on that vessel;
- where the crew lists for that ship and dates are archived.
It may also be helpful to know the ship's port of registry.
DON'T PANIC (YET)! This page explains how to find any information that you don't have, and what terms like 'official number' mean.
PANIC, A LITTLE. If you don't know the ship's name, you will need to try the
indexes which list seamen's names. Then come back to this point.
The next task is to find the ship's official number. This is important, because most of the large repositories
which hold crew lists use official numbers, rather than names, as a reference.
Official numbers, shipping registers and appropriation books
From 1855, British ships were given an unique official number when they were first
registered. The number stayed with the ship throughout her life, even
if she was re-registered or the ship’s name was changed.
The official numbers were allocated by the Registrar General of Shipping. Each Port of Registry (see below)
in the United Kingdom and British colonies was allocated runs of numbers as necessary. At these ports, the
numbers were recorded in the Shipping Registers and also in the Appropriation Book for that port.
Copies of registers were sent to the Registrar General of Shipping who maintained the central Appropriation Books,
which are the single complete definitive list of British registered vessels and their official numbers.
These central Appropriation Books are held at the current Registry of Shipping and Seamen (RSS) at Cardiff.
CLIP has made images of the books and has recently completed a computerised index from them.
The simplest way is to use the finding aids on this site.
Data from the appropriation books and other records gathered during the CLIP project is
included in the CLIP finding aids, which currently contain over 250,000 records of
ships' names and official numbers. The finding aid has facilities for a fuzzy search which helps you to find
possible vessel names from entries on crew lists which are hard to decipher. It also gives the ships port(s) of
registry (see below), dates of registry and vessel types, which
can help to sort out cases where several ships had the same name. We also show the source of each item of data.
The finding aids also allow you to dig down to find whereabouts of the ship's crew lists, and also deep-link
to other sites to search for more details of a ship.
Don't rely on just one source of data (even CLIP!). Over a five year period, more than 10% of vessels ceased to exist, or had been
re-registered at another port. Vessel names were also sometimes changed. You need to find a source of data closest to the time
period you are interested in. The sources below will be helpful in doing this.
The Mercantile Navy List and Lloyd's Register of Shipping
You can look up official numbers and other details in the Mercantile Navy List (from 1857) or Lloyd’s
Register of Shipping (from 1872). The Mercantile Navy List lists the official number of every
registered ship, but is less readily available. Copies of Lloyd's Register can be found more easily, but it is
much less comprehensive: only ships registered with Lloyd's are included, so many smaller ships are not there;
there are many foreign vessels, with other numbers entered against them, and some ships which undoubtedly
did have an official number are shown but without one. Note also that Lloyd's Registers run from July to June, not calendar years.
Copies of these lists can
be found at NMM, The National Archives and some record offices and large
reference libraries. The PortCities Southampton site has (incomplete) lists of where
the
Mercantile Navy List and
Lloyd’s Register of Shipping can be found.
Google books have scanned a few copies of the Mercantile Navy List (MNL) and other shipping registers, as follows:
Google books appears to be working steadily through copies of Lloyd’s Register from 1800 onwards and have currently reached 1868.
As noted above, the first year which shows official numbers is 1872.
However, the Open Library have copies of some later editions of Lloyd’s Register (which, strangely,
carry the Google Books foreword). The following show official numbers:
- 1872-73
- 1873-74
- 1874-75
- 1883-84
- 1889-90
- 1893-94, Volume II, Sailing vessels
- 1894-95, Volume II, Sailing vessels
- 1896-97, Volume II, Sailing vessels
- 1897-98, Volume II, Sailing vessels
- 1898-99, Volume II, Sailing vessels
The Miramar index has records of over 230,000 vessels world wide with over 430,000 entries.
The vessels included are merchant powered ships (not sailing vessels) of over 100 tons and smaller naval vessels.
A large number of American Lloyd's Registers and other registers are available on the Mystic Seaport web site, and show records of some British registered vessels. Useful, with care.
The PortCities project scanned images of Lloyd's Register for the period 1930 to 1945 and these are available on the
Plimsoll ShipData web site.
These sites have databases of vessels which include official numbers (and in some cases, images) :
New Zealand Maritime Index
Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN)
Fleetwood Online Archive of Trawlers (FLOAT)
Milford Trawlers
Great Lakes Vessels Online Image Database
Register of Ships
The Mariners web site has a
list of over 40,000 official numbers, but it is listed by official number
rather than by name,
so awkward to use. However, you can go to the
Mariners home page and enter the ship's name into the search box. If successful, you will see a
series of search results with your vessel's name in bold. The number to the left of that is her
official number. It's probably easiest to make a note of the number(s) and then click the link to go
to the main (official number) list and check out the details.
Ports of Registry
British ships were registered at one of over two hundred statutory Ports of
Registry, and this is the port under which their crew lists were filed. Ships
were sometimes re-registered at a different port. In this case, the crew lists are
sometimes to be found with those for the new port; sometimes with those for the old.
Shipping Registers
The surviving Shipping Registers for each port are now usually held at the local Record Office nearest to that port,
together with the port Appropriation Book. We are compiling a list of these locations which will be published on this
site in due course.
Once you know the basic information about the seafarer's ship, the next step is to track down the
crew lists for that ship. The lists are held at many different places:
10% are at local record offices (ROs) or archives
10% are at the National Maritime Museum (NMM),
Greenwich
10% are at The
National Archives (TNA (formerly PRO)), Kew
70% are at the Maritime History Archive (MHA)
in Newfoundland
The records for one ship could be at any or all of these places.
Crew lists at record offices
10% of the lists are in over forty local record offices (ROs) in the UK
and at the National Archives of the Republic of Ireland. Holdings at ROs vary from sparse
samples to almost complete runs for individual ships.
The CLIP list of
record offices holding crew lists is the most complete available.
If you know the ship’s port of registry and the crew lists are held
at a record office, then that is probably the best place to start.
To help find which crew lists are held at ROs, you can use the finding aid:
"A guide to the Crew Agreements and Official Logbooks, 1863 -
1913, held at the County Record Offices of the British Isles",
Maritime History Archive, Newfoundland.
This lists ships by official number only. Some ROs which hold crew
lists are not included. This guide is on fiche or
printed and is available at the National Maritime Museum (NMM),
The National Archives (TNA) and some record offices and reference libraries.
You can also
search on-line (by official number only) on the same MHA web site which lists
the MHA holdings (see below).
Crew Lists at the National Maritime Museum
The lists and agreements for 1861, 1862 and for the years ending in “5”
are at the National Maritime Museum (NMM) in
Greenwich. They are out-stored and you will need to ring to order weeks in advance of a
visit. They will make photocopies, but there is no handlist of their
holdings of any sort.
Crew Lists at The National Archives
A random 10% sample of the documents is held at the The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, in BT 99 with others in BT 100,
BT 144 and BT 165.
BT 99 is indexed by official number, originally in loose-leaf
files at TNA. There is no index by ship’s name. In collaboration with TNA, CLIP has transferred this paper index to
electronic format. It is now available on this site
and will soon be available via the TNA catalogue.
Crew Lists at the Maritime History Archive
The remaining 70% of lists are at the Maritime History Archive (MHA) in Newfoundland. A list of their
holdings (by official number only) is provided by:
Guide to the Agreements and Crew Lists: Series II (BT 99),1863 - 1912
Maritime History Archive, Newfoundland.
This guide is on fiche or printed and is available at NMM, TNA
and some record offices and libraries.
You can also
search on-line on the MHA web site (again by official number only) and order copies
of crew lists. As noted above, this also lists the holding at most British local record offices.
More details and other records
For more detail and for other periods, records of ships, Royal Naval
Reserve etc, the best reference book is:
Records of Merchant Shipping and Seamen, Smith, Watts and Watts,
PRO, (ISBN: 1 873 162 49 9).
