This is an index of people named in shipping registers. It shows the person's name and entries in the shipping registers against that name. There are links so that you can see a complete transcript of the register folio on which the entry occurs.

How to search for a person's name

Use the search form to enter the person's surname. Do not use wild-cards, such as '?', '%'.

If you wish, you can add a forename.

Then click Search

Reading the results

The results are shown in alphabetic order of surname and forename with the person's address and occupation. The date is the date of the entry in the register with a summary of the entry in the details column. The register is shown with the folio (page) number.

Using the results

On the right of the results table is a link Transcript which shows a transcript of that folio. Bear in mind that we have only transcribed the main details from the document and the original will always contain more information.

People are named in shipping registers as:

• the builder of the ship;
• the owners, shown as owning a number of 1/64th shares, sometime jointly, and
• masters (in earlier registers).

The original owners who provided the details for the registration were referred to as 'subscribing owners'. From the 1880s, one person was named as the 'managing owner' or sometimes the 'ship's husband' - ie an agent.

Transactions relating to the ship are shown in the registers, such as transfers of ownership and mortgages. Where there were many transactions, they were continued onto another folio at the back of the same register, or in a separate transactions register.

The registers sometimes contain other items such as correspondence, which we have not noted, so if you are particularly interested in a person we would recommend contacting the archive for more details.

We always try to stay close to the original text, but to facilitate transcription, we have stylised some of the phrases, particularly those relating to transactions.

Data sources

The data was transcribed by CLIP from the Isle of Man shipping registers held at Manx National Heritage Library. Please note that these are the only shipping registers for which we have this information. For a list of the registers, please see: List of Isle of Man shipping registers

More details

For more detail on shipping registers, please see Shipping registers and for the Isle of Man registers, Isle of Man shipping registers