Re: Records for Ships Steward

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 07 Feb 2008 15:00

My Grandfather's marriage certificate, dated 1907, age 20, shows his occupation as Ships Steward. Does anyone have any idea where I could find out details of his employment, ship, countries visited etc.He lived in West Ham so presumably he sailed from London.My mother said that she was told that he had 'travelled the world' by the time he was 16, so I am trying to prove whether this happened.

ID:2747

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 07 Feb 2008 15:52

The first place I might check as it's free is the Eliss Island database, there is a chance he went through at least once, it shows ships crew as well as passengers, and once you have a Ships Name you can work out which line he worked for.

http://www.ellisisland.org/default.asp? ... lAod3U2LNQ

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 07 Feb 2008 16:30

Jane
Thanks for the suggestion. I visited the website and carried out a search but nothing specific came up. My grandfather's christian names were Harold William. There were some Harolds and some William but no Harold William. This makes it difficult to know whether it was him or not. Also the age was slightly out. So I am still a bit lost, but a very interesting site nevertheless.

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 09 Feb 2008 08:18

The difficulty with the records from Ellis Island and other ports is that the lists kept for the ships' crews have much less detail than the lists kept for passengers. It is much more difficult to determine whether you are really looking at a record which belongs to your ancestor, or someone else with the same name.

Rather than specifically searching for your relative by name, I would suggest starting with more general research about the job of ship's steward. Find out if there are memoirs written by other people who worked on ships, or books that would give you an idea of what the stewards' job duties were, and how they came to be hired, and so on.

With that knowledge in hand, you will have a more complete picture of what your relative's experience might have been like, and you'll be more prepared to recognize clues and pointers to other records which might lead you to the details you are looking for.

For instance, are there any records of passport applications for that period?

Jan

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 09 Feb 2008 12:08

Jan
Thanks for your interesting approach to taking my problem forward.It is much appreciated.

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 10 Feb 2008 05:42

You're welcome!

It may not yield any useful data, but researching this kind of thing can be fun in its own right.

Jan

Hilary · Post by **Hilary** » 11 Feb 2008 22:39

This is a very good website for people with connections to some of the ports.
http://www.plimsoll.org/
Southampton Archives keep some of the original merchant seaman's cards the later ones are at TNA.

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 12 Feb 2008 13:45

Hilary
Thanks for another very interesting source.

Regards

Bill Birchall

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 12 Feb 2008 18:47

May I add my thanks, too -- this is an excellent site, which I'm glad to know about.

The principle is, work backwards from our own time. If someone worked as a ship's steward today, what records might be generated about them? When did those requirements come into being? What records might be the equivalent for the time period you are studying? What records might survive, and if so, where might they be found? And what information is likely to be recorded there?

In this case, my #1 question would be how the 'oil and water' employees (ship's crew vs. 'hotel staff' such as stewards) would have been registered on the lists -- would their information have been recorded in separate groups within a ship's crew list as well, or would the names be mingled?

Would the 'hotel staff' crewmembers be required to have different documentation from the seamen?

And so on.

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 01 Apr 2008 23:27

Have you seen the Crew List Index Project (CLIP)?

http://www.crewlist.org.uk/

CLIP was set up to improve access to the records of British merchant seafarers of the late 19th century and has gathered the largest database of entries from crew lists. This site gives information about

* what crew lists are;
* the Crew List Index Project (CLIP);
* how to find the original documents and the seafarers on them;
* indexes of seafarers including the CLIP CD-ROM, and CLIP finding aids;
* CLIP projects on the records of shipping and seafarers.

NB! CLIP is confined to merchant seafarers on British registered ships for the years 1861 to 1913.

The link 'Finding seafarers from indexes' (see left sidebar) discusses how to find people when you don't know what ship they sailed on.

In the references they list this book:

Records of Merchant Shipping and Seamen, Smith, Watts and Watts, PRO, (ISBN: 1 873 162 49 9).

Hope this helps.

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 21 Apr 2008 01:05

Just wanted to mention that I have discovered a ship's steward with the same name as someone I am researching. This person has the same combination of first middle and last names.

Fortunately he is working in the 1920s where the Crew lists have more information than those from earlier years, so I can see from his height that he is about 2 inches taller than the person I am looking for.

I'd also advise taking a close look at any headers you can see on the list.

I found one record where a ship whose crew list says the ship is departing the Port of New York and is bound for London via Plymouth, England and Boulogne Sur Mer, France -- but Ancestry has it backwards, with the search results claiming the ship is arriving in New York and came from London via Plymouth and France. The port names are spit out in the order they appear on the header, regardless of what the fields on the form actually say!

One later crew list does give the closest relatives of the crew members -- very helpful.

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 06 May 2008 15:45

Seen on Dick Eastman's blog:

http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_ge ... ch-an.html

Family Search has announced a three-year project with Find My Past to digitize and make available online some British Historical Records. These have been licensed by TNA.

The three-year project will digitize and index nine million images from the War Office's Royal Hospital Chelsea Soldiers' Service documents dating from 1760 and Militia Attestation Papers documents from 1870, through to 1913.

The Board of Trade's merchant seamen records from the periods 1835 to 1844 and 1918 to 1941 will also be digitized and indexed. When the project is complete, the public will be able to easily search online for the names and date and place of birth of ancestors who served as merchant seamen.

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 07 May 2008 17:10

This particular link won't be of use to Bill, but I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else needs it. It just showed up on the 'new links' mailing list for Cyndi's List:

URL: http://www.irishmariners.ie/index.php
TITLE: Irishmariners.ie - an index of Irish merchant seamen active 1918-1921
DESCRIPTION: The website contains a database of Irish born merchant
seamen contained in the CR10 series of index cards in the Southampton
Civic Archives, which holds 270,000 cards covering the the British
Merchant Marine during the period from late 1918 to the end of 1921.

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 31 May 2008 03:48

Just wanted to mention that my copy of Your Family Tree issue 65 (June 2008 ) arrived in the mail today -- it includes a four-page article 'relatives at sea' which is a nice overview of what kind of resources can be found online -- including census records for 1901 and sometimes earlier.

Jan

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 31 May 2008 09:15

Jan
Thanks for your information.It is most helpful. This thread has certainly caused some debate!
Re: my own problem, I am keeping my fingers crossed, as I am hoping to get some Crew Lists, from the NSW Records Office in Sydney, which they think have my Grandfather's name on them.

Bill

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 01 Jun 2008 14:55

You're welcome, Bill. Happy hunting!

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 03 Aug 2008 09:21

Just wanted to post a quick update about my own passenger list research.

I subscribe to several email newsletters so I'm not quite sure what news item prompted this, but I recently revisited the outbound passenger lists at Find My Past / Ancestors on Board.

These are TNA's BT27 Outward Passenger Lists 1890 - 1960.

On that visit I finally noticed the link 'what are sea departure cards?' on the search results page. After looking at the sample card, and seeing that the full date of birth is listed for the passenger, I became very excited -- if the cards could be matched up to their corresponding passenger lists, then you would have the actual date of birth of the passenger instead of just an age.

However, while following up on my initial search, I discovered the following note under 'search tips':

Sea departure cards

For November and December 1960 only, sea departure cards are available to view, as well as the regular passenger lists, in some cases. However, in some cases there are cards without corresponding lists, as well as lists without cards. The sea departure cards are not linked to corresponding passenger lists (where they exist), and so you may be returned two results for the same person on the same voyage.

Alas -- no cards for me -- I'm searching between 1890 - 1930.

Jan

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 04 Aug 2008 14:12

Jan
Thanks for the update. I subscribe to FindMyPast but, unfortunately my search is for one of the crew and I do not believe that they are included on a passenger list. I have contacted, the New South Wales Public Records office and obtained crew lists for the ship I was researching(Drayton Grange) It has on it a William Pearson 16 born Forest Gate, London. My Grandfather, was a Harold William Pearson age 16 born Forest Gate London. Without obtaining specific birth dates for each individual, I am unable to totally prove that it is my grandfather, but I am pretty satisfied that it is.

Bill

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 05 Aug 2008 05:06

I know at Ellis Island, there are some crew lists. I discovered that because there's a crew member with the same name as one of my husband's great-uncles.

I haven't found any relatives 'down under' yet so I have no idea what is available. But it's always better to research what is out there rather than assume something doesn't exist.

I just found one of my husband's relatives in the small unburned schedule of the otherwise missing 1890 US Census. You never know what will turn up unless you try.

Good luck!

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 21 Sep 2008 07:34

Just wanted to mention that issue 69 of the magazine Your Family Tree

http://www.yourfamilytreemag.co.uk/

with the cover feature of 'Find more records on the Internet' has an article from a reader with a relative who was a ship's steward -- and someone in the family still had his seaman's book with the record of all the ships he had sailed on.

So if you are curious about what the books look like, there is a nice photo of part of a page. They also show part of his discharge papers.

A sidebar suggests cross-referencing the seaman's books with the crew lists on ellisisland.org and at TNA, and gives a few book references.

Jan

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 21 Sep 2008 09:45

jmurphy,

Once again thank you for the time and interest that you have given to my thread!

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 21 Sep 2008 17:57

Hi, Bill, how is your research going?

I mentioned earlier in the thread that there is someone in the crew list with a similar name and age to one of my husband's great-uncles -- I found this out when searching the Ellis Island site in the early days of my exploring records on the Internet.

I have now ruled out that person on the crew lists as a relative because we've found that my husband's great-uncle died when he was a child. [frown]

Even if you can't find the records online, keep exploring the question 'what records existed' because you never know what might turn up.

Jan

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 22 Sep 2008 08:34

Jan

Re: my previous response:'I have contacted, the New South Wales Public Records office and obtained crew lists for the ship I was researching(Drayton Grange) It has on it a William Pearson 16 born Forest Gate, London. My Grandfather, was a Harold William Pearson age 16 born Forest Gate London. Without obtaining specific birth dates for each individual, I am unable to totally prove that it is my grandfather, but I am pretty satisfied that it is.'

I do not think that the Drayton Grange did the New York run,as it was ferrying troops and supplies between the war zones of Somalia, South Africa and Australia, so Ellis Island did not show up anything. I have tried the UK and Canadian maritime museums and approached experts in maritime history, but all I have come up with is the crew list from Sydney.

Bill

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 25 Oct 2008 11:59

Hello, Bill --

Since my husband's relatives went back and forth between England and the US several times, I have been keen to get access to the BT 26 lists of incoming passengers to the UK.

Ancestry.co.uk has finally added some of these records. Unfortunately, I only have access to Ancestry.com (the US version) and will have to save my pennies for a World Deluxe Subscription in order to see the details of what they have.

So I decided to look around to see who else might have BT 26 records, thinking that if Ancestry has these by license from one of the UK vendors, it might be better to buy a month's access directly from the UK source.

Just for fun, I did a Google search. And found this interesting page on Rootsweb:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... d/BT26.htm

It's an Index for 900 passenger lists from NZ, taken from the BT 26 records (compiled before any information was online).

Take a look down the page and you'll see these entries:

BT 26/511/30 Bristol: SS Drayton Grange (Houlder Line) from N.Z. to Bristol. Embarking at Lyttelton. O#: 114064.L/pass/dis Bristol. 1912 Apr 18

and

BT 26/511/88 Bristol: SS Drayton Grange (Federal Line) from N.Z. to Bristol. Embarking at Lyttelton. O#: 114084.L/pass/dis Bristol. 1912 Oct 16

A Google search also turned up a BT 26 listing at the National Archives from 1911.

Another page on Rootsweb features the NZ Troopships, and there is a table showing which units sailed on the SS Drayton Grange:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... pships.htm

I don't know if these cover the period of your relative's service, but I thought they might be of interest.

Jan

billbirchall · Post by **billbirchall** » 25 Oct 2008 12:18

Jan
Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, by 1912 my grandfather had married (1907)and had about 4 children. I think that he was a Drill Instructor, by then.

Bill

Family Historian User Group