Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (34 page)

If you had ancestors who fought in the RAF or its predecessors during a conflict, then you may be interested in visiting the Imperial War Museum at Duxford in Cambridgeshire. Visit http://duxford.iwm.org.uk
to find out more about the museum's upcoming events or browse the Imperial War Museum website's ‘War in the Air' collection at www.iwmcollections.org.uk/inair, which includes photographs and audio recordings and descriptions of film footage, documents and artefacts held at the museum.

Some suggestions for further reading:

•  Air Force Records for Family Historians
by W. Spencer (Public Record Office Publications, 2000)

•  RAF Records in the PRO
by
S. Fowler, P. Elliott, R. Conyers Nesbit and C. Goulter (Public Record Office Publications, 1994)

•  The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force and Commonwealth, 1918–1988
by J. J. Halley (Air Britain (Historians), revised edition, 1988)

The Royal Air Forces Association (RAFA) was established in 1929 so that RAF personnel could maintain contact with one another after the First World War, and it has a list of useful links on its website at www.rafa.org.uk. You can post a message in the
Airmail
magazine run by RAFA to try to find any living ex-service personnel who may have recollections of working with your relative by writing to:

Royal Air Forces Association

Central Headquarters

43 Grove Park Road

London W4 3RU

If you would like to contact an association dedicated to a specific squadron or station that your ancestor worked with then have a look at the Royal Air Forces Register of Associations (RAFRA) website at www.associations.rafinfo.org.uk. These associations may be able to help you learn more about your ancestor and their time with the RAF.

As a nation surrounded by the sea, Britons have a long association with maritime professions, perhaps no more so than the Merchant Navy. Fortunately, a vast array of material survives that allows us to trace the movements of our ancestors around the world, and this chapter shows you all the steps you'll need to take, as well as highlighting some of the potential pitfalls involved.

The Merchant Navy was a private organization that was not regulated by government until the nineteenth century. In 1835 merchant shipping became the responsibility of the Register Office of Merchant Shipping (RGSS), regulated by the Board of Trade. It is from this date that the major collections of Merchant Navy records begin, especially for individual seamen. Prior to that date some records do exist, but locating an individual is significantly harder. The RGSS, later known as the Registry of Shipping and Seamen (RSS), has been the administering body for the Merchant Navy since 1835. It is currently based in Cardiff and still retains the most recent Merchant Navy records (since 1996).

Records for individuals who served in the Merchant Navy are found in a number of archives. Again, the majority are held at The National Archives. However, there are also important collections in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, and the Guildhall Library of London and some local repositories. The British Library holds the collection of the East India Company's merchant marine. The Memorial University of Canada also holds information that may be of relevance. Additionally, the General Record Office has indexes recording births, marriages and deaths of British nationals on British ships.

The Merchant Navy, like the Royal Navy, distinguished between masters and captains, who were responsible for the entire ship, and ordinary seamen, who worked on the ships. Until 1835 finding records for ordinary seamen is a complex task with little guarantee of success. Indeed, up until 1747 there was no requirement for ships' masters to keep any muster rolls or crew lists. Surviving records to that date simply detail the owner of the ship and its master.

‘Until 1835 finding records for ordinary seamen is complex – up until 1747 masters didn't have to keep crew lists.'

Crew lists were only kept in a small minority of cases prior to 1747, when ships were involved in maritime disputes. Records of these maritime disputes may record crew lists, although this was not always the case. These records are now held at The National Archives, in series HCA (High Court of Admiralty) and DEL (Records of the High Court of Delegates). Such lists as do survive in these series are not indexed and the chances of locating your ancestor are rather limited.

In 1747 it became a requirement for all masters or owners of merchant ships to record the individuals employed on their ships on various muster rolls and crew lists. Along with the seaman or officer's name they would usually record home residence, name of last ship served on and the date the sailor was engaged on and discharged from the ship. These are now held in The National Archives series BT 98. Unfortunately, the survival rate of these lists is not complete. The lists would be stored at the arrival or departure port of the ship and until 1800 lists only survive for Dartmouth, Liverpool and Shields (now North and South Shields). The latter is the only port that has lists starting from 1747. The number of lists increases greatly after 1800. However, they are arranged annually by name of port and there are currently no indexes. Hence, it is a very lengthy task to search for an individual unless you are aware of the relevant port and the ship on which they sailed.

Other than crew lists, there are some alternative sources that may give information about seamen in this period.

•
 
The Trinity House petitions:
The Corporation of Trinity House was formed in the sixteenth century as a guild to help mariners and their families in times of poverty or sickness through charitable funds. By the nineteenth century the organization was supporting many mariners through almshouses or awarding pensions. Mariners or their families had to submit petitions in order to receive assistance from Trinity House. These petitions survive from 1787 to 1854 and are stored at the Guildhall Library. They contain useful genealogical information and also career service details. The Society of Genealogists has copies of these petitions, numbering around 8,000, and an index to these records can be searched on the Origins website, at www.origins.net. The Guildhall Library also has registers of almspeople and out-pensioners being assisted by Trinity House, ranging from 1729 to 1946.

•
 
Apprenticeship records:
The system of apprenticeship was widespread amongst numerous trades and professions from the seventeenth century onwards, merchant shipping being no exception. Some pauper boys were forcibly indentured to serve as apprentices on ships by parishes from 1704 onwards. If records survive for this practice they will be held with local record offices. Taxes were placed on the entire apprenticeship system for each type of profession from 1710 to 1811. These records are held in The National Archives series IR 1 and there are indexes for boys (from 1710 to 1764) and masters from (1710 to 1762).

•
 
The Marine Society:
This society, founded in 1756 and still in existence today, was another charitable organization training individuals for employment in the Merchant or Royal Navy. Their records can now be found at the National Maritime Museum. The records include registers of boys who were sent to sea from the Society from 1756 to 1958. Some of these registers may be indexed and contain genealogical information such as the name of the parents. There are separate registers for adult males who came through the Society, although these are not indexed.

•  
Apprenticeship records for those indentured to fishermen in the south east can be found in HCA 30/897, for the years 1639 to 1664
.

•  
BT 167 has a register of apprentices for the port of Colchester for 1704 to 1757 and 1804 to 1844
.

•  
BT 150 has an index for apprentices between 1824 and 1953 although only a limited number of actual indenture records survive
.

The bulk of the records for merchant seamen start from this period. In 1835 the Merchant Shipping Act stipulated that all crew lists should be stored centrally. Hence a large amount of documentation was produced to comply with this regulation. These include registers of seamen (compiled from the crew lists with the aim of providing additional personnel for the Royal Navy in times of conflict), officers' certificates and more modern crew lists and apprenticeship records.

Document collections for the more modern apprenticeship records begin in 1824 due to the passing of the Merchant Seamen Act of 1823. The Act made it compulsory for all ships over a certain tonnage to include indentured apprentices. Lists of indentured apprentices would be made by local officials and, after 1835, these lists would be sent to the central authorities in London. After 1849 these apprenticeships became voluntary and started to be used as a means of training officers. As mentioned above, indexes for these records survive in BT 150, although only a sample survives for the actual records. Some local registers also survive and can be found in the CUST series at The National Archives.

Along with the many other regulations brought in with the Merchant Shipping Act of 1835 was a new method of keeping crew lists. From 1835 to 1860 the records are held at The National Archives in series BT 98. Records up to 1857 are arranged by port and then alphabetically by ship's name. Between 1857 and 1860 the lists are organized by the official ship number. Each seaman serving on the ship is noted in these lists as written agreement had to be sought from these seamen about conditions of service. Each individual's entry should include the name, birth details, rank (known as quality), previous ship and date of joining and leaving the current ship. However, there are no indexes from 1835 to 1857 and it is only feasible to view these records by finding out ship details from seamen's registers (see below).

The official ship number can be found by consulting
Lloyd's Register of Shipping
or the Mercantile Navy List
.

The later crew lists (from 1861 to 1976) are found in a number of
archives, and the survival rate is generally much higher then for the earlier ones.

•
 
The National Archives:
They have a random 10 per cent sample of crew lists from 1861 to 1938 and then from 1951 to 1972. They can be found in a few different series: BT 99, BT 100, BT 144 and BT 165. The crew lists during the Second World War are held separately, in BT 381, BT 380 and BT 387. There is a card index to all ships' logbooks and crew lists received by the RGSS between 1939 and 1950 in BT 385. The index is alphabetically arranged by ship name and is the simplest way of ascertaining where records of the ship of interest will be found. After 1972 only a 2 per cent sample has been retained. The remainder have been destroyed up to 1994, apart from the lists retained by the National Maritime Museum (see below). All lists after 1994 are still with the RSS in Cardiff.

•
 
The National Maritime Museum:
The Museum holds the remaining 90 per cent of the crew lists for the years 1861 and 1862. It also has the remainder for every year ending in 5 from 1865 onwards (apart from 1945). The Museum also holds card indexes to the ships' crew lists similar to those found at The National Archives for its collections.

•
 
Local Archives and County Record Offices:
Certain local repositories may also store crew lists for the years 1863 to 1913 for their local ports. The website www.crewlist.org.uk can provide further details regarding which lists such archives may store.

•
 
The University of Newfoundland, Canada:
The Maritime History Group in the University of Newfoundland, Canada, also retains significant holdings relating to crew lists and agreements. The Group has the remaining crew lists not found elsewhere for the years 1863 to 1938 and then from 1951 to 1976. The Group has also produced three indexes by ship number for their earlier collection:

    
  An index for its crew lists from 1863 to 1913

    
  An index for its crew lists from 1913 to 1938