This is a brief guide to researching records of merchant seamenseafarers on merchant vessels - ships that transport cargo or passengers serving before 1857. Many records of merchant seamen survive for the period from 1835 to 1857, and you can search some of them by name at The National Archives using contemporary indexes.
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What do I need to know before I start?
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Try to find out:
- dates when the seaman was serving
- the port where the ship was registered
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What records can I see online?
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Merchant seamen registers (1835-1857)
Search and download registers of merchant seamen who served between 1835 and 1857 (BT 112, BT 113, BT 116 and BT 120) on findmypast.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). BT 114, the name index to BT 113 is also included.
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Register of duties paid for apprentices' indentures (1710-1811)
Search the register of duties paid for apprenctices' indentures on Ancestry (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). These records of apprenticeships, from IR 1, are for various professions, including seamen both as apprentices and as mastersmaster - captain of a merchant ship; same as master mariner - it has different meanings in the Royal Navy or Royal Marines.
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What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?
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Agreements and crew lists (1747-1860)
Search the agreements and crew listswritten agreements regarding conditions of service and crew lists filed by ships' masters with the Registrar General of Shipping in BT 98 by date range and port of registry.
If you get many search results, choose sort by reference on the search results page.
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Merchant Navy apprentices (1824-1953)
Browse the indexes of apprentices registered in the Merchant Navyterm for ships that transport cargo or passengers during peacetime and are auxiliaries to the Royal Navy in times of conflict in BT 150. These are indexes to the apprentices' indentures in BT 151 and BT 152.
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To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£there will be a charge) or, where you can identify a specific record referencea unique set of letters and numbers identifying a document in The National Archives, order a copy (£there will be a charge).
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What records can I find in other archives and organisations?
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Records held locally
Search the Access to Archives (A2A) and National Register of Archives (NRA) databases to find records held in local archives.
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What other resources will help me find information?
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Websites
Search the Apprentices of Great Britain 1710-1774 database on findmypast.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) for indexes to apprenticeships in IR 1.
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Books
Read My Ancestor was a Merchant Seaman by Christopher and Michael Watts (Society of Genealogists, 2002).
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Merchant seamen serving 1858-1917
Merchant seamen serving after 1917
Officers in the Merchant Navy