This is a brief guide to help you with your research. Records of Royal Navy ratingsRating - a seaman ranking lower than an officer. These are the most junior class of seamen in the Royal Navy. are kept in different places depending on when the rating served. This guide will help you to find out if the information you are looking for exists, and if it does where to find it.
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What do I need to know before I start?
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Try to find out:
- the ratingA seaman ranking lower than an officer. These are the most junior class of seamen in the Royal Navy.'s full name
- his approximate dates of service
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What records can I see online?
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Registers of seamen's services (1853-1923)
Search and download the Royal Navy ratings' service records on our catalogue (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) for ratingsRating - a seaman ranking lower than an officer. These are the most junior class of seamen in the Royal Navy. who entered the Royal Navy between 1853 and 1923 (ADM 139 and ADM 188).
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Medal rolls (1793-1972)
Search by name for information about the award of campaign, long service and good conduct medals in the Royal Navy medal rolls (ADM 171) using Ancestry.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). These rolls do not usually contain biographical information.
Digital microfilm copies of these records are also available to download and browse from our catalogue free of charge.
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What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?
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Pension records (1789-1894)
Search Discovery, our catalogue, by name for ratingsRating - a seaman ranking lower than an officer. These are the most junior class of seamen in the Royal Navy.' pension records. These include ratings' applications for admission to Royal Greenwich Hospital in ADM 73, surnames A-M only, and the certificates of service that accompanied these applications in ADM 29.
Please note, this is a search across the entire catalogue description of each record, not just the name. A search for someone called Barnes, for example, may give some results for people born in Barnes.
Narrow your search by using quotation marks to find a person's full name, for example "John Williams".
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Ships' musters and pay books (1667-1878)
Search our catalogue for a musteror muster roll: a list of people in receipt of pay or pay book for a particular ship to find lists of ratingsRating - a seaman ranking lower than an officer. These are the most junior class of seamen in the Royal Navy. serving on the ship (ADM 31 - ADM 39, ADM 115, ADM 117 and ADM 119). When searching, enter the name of the ship not including HMS or other prefixes.
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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 for an announcement of a 19th or 20th century gallantry awardmedals awarded for heroic or exceptional service on the London Gazette website. -
Books
Use our library catalogue to find a recommended book list.
The books are all available in The National Archives' reference library. You may also be able to find them in a local library. You can buy from a wide range of history titles in our bookshop.
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Merchant seamen serving 1858-1917
Royal Navy commissioned officers
Royal Navy ratings after 1923