They are arranged by date and registration number with indexes of vessels between 1837 and 1920 at CUST 130/132-136. They are: If the seaman was only employed temporarily, or was an apprentice, he may not have been issued with a discharge A number or a British Seamans Identity Card in which case he is unlikely to appear in the registers. Please note: Although some of these records have been digitized and made available online, there are many records that are only available in paper or microfilm format at NARA locations. Searchable by sailors name, vessel name, official number and voyage year. It provides information on merchant shipping for insurance companies and the maritime industry. To find a crew list and agreement from 1855 onwards, you will need to know the ships official number. More than 1,600 Canadian and Newfoundland men and women of the approximately 12,000 that served in the Merchant Navy lost their lives due to enemy action; a higher rate than in any of the Canadian armed services. Some of the seamen discharged during this period had been in service as far back as 1913 and the records reflect this. There are two main types of crew list for this period: Use the search box contained withinBT 98 to search by date and name of ships port of registry. The lists can be downloaded as digital microfilm. These are records of seamen serving on British registered vessels but the seamen themselves need not have been British to appear in the records. The records maintained cover World War II, 1939 to 1947 and a limited number of ships which operated in the Korean War, 1950 to 1953. . The crew lists provide information about of members of the Irish Merchant Navy who were from all over the world. Since the Registry General of Shipping and seamen regulations covered only British seamen, details of engagement, such as length of engagement, could be different, allowing a lascar seaman to be contracted for a period longer than one voyage and sometimes for several years. Keep track of your research in a research log. Searchand downloadsurvivingmerchant shipping movement cards(BT 389)in Discovery, ourcatalogue, (charges apply) for the Second World War. Related Records: Merchant Navy Seamen Special Benefit Class of Record VAC MVA 725. Records of merchant seamen serving after 1972 are not held by The National Archives. This central registration stopped in 1857 and only began again in 1914 with the start of the First World War. The Tenth Fleet Records contain: The movement report cards for the merchant ships list the ports of call for the ships, the dates of the visit, and the convoy . The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey. To identify records held in local archives, searchour catalogueand refine your results using the filters. Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map. The originals are held by Southampton Archives. complicated tale and if you really are stuck, do please get in touch. Crew lists and agreements for Indian crew (or lascars) of British registered ships who enlisted on the Indian sub-continent are called Asiatic agreements. The Merchant Navy turned to shipping companies that operated on inland or coastal waterways, but also accepted men rejected earlier by the Navy or other services for being under- or over-age, or not meeting medical standards. More than 25,000 merchant ship voyages were made during the war. Vol 1, Origins and Early Years. They include registers of engagement, articles of agreement, registers of discharge, registers of deserters, and employment history records. For help searching these see our research guide on Treasury papers, T 64 Miscellaneous records with ships entered and cleared, plantation shipping returns, miscellaneous returns from Scotland. History of Canadian Navy commanders and profiles of outstanding sailors. Genealogical enquiriesshould be made in writing and search fees are 30. Board of Trade registers: Transcripts and transactions, 1786-1998 6.. You have the right to be treated with respect, dignity, fairness and courtesy by Veterans Affairs Canada. The database includes every British registered ship from 1855 to the early 1950s with official numbers 1 to 200000. . We explain what indexes are available and how to use them. By 1878, only 11 years after Confederation, Canada was the fourth largest ship-owning nation in the world, with a merchant fleet of 7,200 vessels. The registers are filed by decades, according to the date of closure, and then alphabetically under the ships name. We place some essential cookies on your device to make this website work. Fifty-nine Canadian-registered merchant ships were sunk by enemy or probable enemy action. BT 381. I am trying to see if I can get more detailed records of my stepfather's service with BISN Co. 1943 - mid 1950s as a Navigator. Crew lists for ships on foreign voyages (Schedule C) By the end of the war, Canadian merchant sailors had sailed all the worlds oceans, through storms, surface raiders and submarines to deliver essential supplies. The Roll of Honour lists merchant seamen who died in service during the war or who were declared missing, presumed dead. The cost of the war was high. Image of a ships muster roll 1770-1775 (catalogue reference: BT 98/3). when a wealth of detail about their lives is revealed. The series also contains transfer books from 1845 to 1982, recording changes of ownership. The Mercantile Navy List 1861-1949 available in reading room. Ironically, the Canadian merchant fleetonce again the fourth largest in the worlddid not last very long. Search our catalogue by name of person or ship in T 335 to find what the award was, the persons rank at the time, and the ship they were serving on. Subscribe now for regular news, updates and priority booking for events.Sign up, All content is available under the Open Government Licence Visit the Lloyds Register Foundation Heritage and Education centre website for information on their online and archival resources. Very few of the records described in this guide are available online. Description: This bank describes information that is used to provide statements of sea service to support applications for service medals and Veterans' benefits to individual merchant seamen. The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest and hardest battle ever fought at sea. 09:00 to 17:00. Half-yearly crew lists for ships on home voyages (Schedule D) Records of Royal Naval Reserve ratings in service between 1914 -1955 are available online atwww.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/royal-naval-reserve-service-records.htm. During six protracted years, more people, ships and materil were lost than in all the naval campaigns of the previous 500 years combined. I Cant Find the Person Im Looking For, What Now? Use this guide for advice on how to find British merchant shipping records known as crew lists and agreements, originally known as muster books, and log books. Photos and paintings from the first 100 years of Canadian naval history. Site includes guides to finding and using crew lists. These CRS 10 forms are often referred to as seamens docket books and can include the following details (for the full list of possible details see the series description of BT 382): Merchant seamen who were discharged from the navy between 1940 and 1972 had their records filed in what became known as seamens pouches. To view most of the documents that you find references for, you will need to eithervisit The National Archives at Keworpay for copies to be sent to you. TheNational Records of Scotlandholds agreements and crew lists under the reference BT 3, covering 1867-1913, for Scottish ships only. What are these records? A Fifth Register was created in 1941 and records details of seamen who were paid by the Government to remain in the Merchant Navy Reserve Pool. They were logged at ports such as Madras and Bombay under the direction of the Serang or Headman of the port. In a final act of recognition, in 2003 Parliament declared 3 September annually as Merchant Navy Veterans Day. Military records are potentially of great genealogical value and may provide information not found in any other source. They hold 70% of the surviving crew lists and agreements for this period. Search using Squadron name/number: formerly AIR135 - AIR173. Additionally, nothing was done to compensate the living for the loss of benefits since 1945. Ships capable of 15 knots or better sailed independently. This may require viewing multiple records or images. We can either copy our records onto paper or deliver them to you digitally, Visit us in Kew to see original documents or view online records for free, Consider paying for . History of Canadian submarines and sailors. Hatheway Labour Exhibit CentreRead more about the Canadian Seamen's Union strike, on this website dedicated to the labour history of Saint John, NB. Official history of the Naval Service of Canada, from 1910 to its centennial in 2010. The vast forests of pre-Confederation Canada initially provided lumber to build French and British vessels, but by the early 19th century a small home-grown shipbuilding industry expanded rapidly, turning out a steady supply of sturdy wooden vessels. From "Merchant Navy Seamen1835-1941." Database and images. Whenever possible FamilySearch makes images and indexes available for all users. We've divided them into three sections: People, Ships and Documents, For more detail on our data and the sources we have used, please click here: In a third series, BT 390, you can browse references to seamens pouches for service in the Second World War. We enjoy dealing with awkward questions; we don't think there is such a thing as a silly question, and we often www.thegenealogist.co.uk (The Genealogist: Masters and Apprentices Records, 1824-1910. For details of what sort of information the records may provide read the descriptions of BT 348, BT 349, BT 350 and BT 364 in our catalogue. The certificate numbers were recorded in registers and copies sent to the Board of Trade. British registered ships aimed at assisting researchers to finding their crew documents. On the right hand side was the certificate of discharge, which had spaces to fill in the name of the ship, official number, port of registry, registered tonnage, port of departure, name of seaman, date of birth, place of birth, capacity, date of entry into crew lists, place and date of discharge. It shows matching names and their official number, sorted first by name, then by official number. The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom and comprises the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. The following articles will help you research your family in Ireland. Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Bank Number: VAC PPU 120. The records include Registers of Apprentices sent to Merchant Ships 1772-1950. Browseour catalogue inMT 25/8385for lists of British merchant and fishing vessels sunk or damaged by enemy action 19141920. v3.0, date and place of joining and leaving the ship, reason for leaving the ship, whether discharged, drowned, or otherwise, the amount of money invested in the fund by each crew member (this was calculated on a pro rata basis at 6d per month), how disposed of (the nature of the seamans departure from the ship, whether discharged, drowned or otherwise). Discovery is a catalogue of archival records across the UK and beyond, from which you can search 32 million records. We are delighted to help with advice about finding records (that's what CLIP and this web site is all about) but please do not ask us The information contained in these includes name of boy, age and height, former employment, and the name of the master and ship to which the boy was sent. First World War Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve recordscan also beaccessed online. Transcripts and transactions relating to fishing boats are inBT 110from 1895. To find a ships official number go to theCrew List Index Project(CLIP) website, which has information about merchant ships from 1855 to 1913, or theMiramar Ship Indexwebsite (subscription required) which lists some categories of merchant and naval ships. data is focussed on tracking down crew lists, but we provide other resources, such as indexed images of the Mercantile Navy List, as well as a comprehensive set of links to other sites.