Merchant Navy - Tracing

Research guide C1: The Merchant Navy: Tracing people: Crew lists, agreements and official logs

This guide gives details of crew agreements for British-registered merchant ships, crew lists or muster-rolls and official ships' logs.

They are of particular interest to genealogists and people tracing family history, and to anyone researching specific ships or seafaring generally.

Introduction

Crew lists

Crew lists, originally termed muster-rolls or muster-books, began in the 18th century and were initially kept in order to collect a levy from seamen's wages for a relief fund and as a record of the names, ratings, dates of entry and final discharge for all men serving on board a ship. The 1835 Merchant Shipping Act and its successors were intended to create central registers of all seamen who might be called on to support the Royal Navy in time of war.

This central registration stopped in 1857 and only began again in 1914 with the start of the First World War.

Crew agreements

Crew agreements, detailed contracts between a seaman and his employer, carried on beyond 1857, and provide greater information about the crew, apprentices, ships and voyages.
For ships engaged in the Home trade (operating in UK coastal waters, or from UK to North European and Baltic ports) records of agreements were submitted twice a year and usually include a list of all sailings and arrivals for the half-year.

Agreements for vessels in the foreign trade were submitted at the end of each voyage and do not include this information, just a general voyage description with dates.

Official logs

Official logs of British merchant ships also have some details of crew members but they are not, as many people assume, a daily diary of a ship's movements. They are more a 'parish register' for the ship, noting vital information about the crew and passengers, and only had to be kept only if there were relevant entries to record. These include new arrivals on board (such as births or the signing on of a new crew member); departures (death, disappearance, desertion, or signing off of a crew member at an intermediary port before the end of the voyage); marriages, illness, and any disciplinary action taken against a crew member.

The log will usually give the ship's position at the time of any birth or death, but may have no other reference to the ship's movements. Sailing and arrival dates are sometimes noted but were not required. The crew agreement, which provides at minimum the date and place of the beginning and end of the voyage, is often more informative in this respect.

Where to find records for...

1747–1860

All surviving muster rolls and crew agreements for British-registered merchant ships up to and including 1860 are held by The National Archives. Muster rolls exist for 1747–1851, but prior to 1800 only those for Dartmouth, Liverpool, Plymouth, Shields and Scarborough have survived. Crew Agreements are available from 1835.

Up to 1854 records are arranged by port and registry number; subsequently by ship's official number. These and other valuable sources are described in The National Archives' Merchant shipping: Crew Lists and Agreements, 1747–1860.

After 1860, crew agreements have been divided between a number of repositories.

1861–1938

A 10% specimen group of crew agreements for each year, taken at random (every tenth box of papers) together with those for famous vessels (with some exceptions, such as those for the Cutty Sark and Great Britain), is in The National Archives. The remaining 90% for 1861, 1862, and years ending in '5', are held by the National Maritime Museum. Anyone wishing to consult them should give at least two weeks advance notice, stating the name and official number of the vessel (see below) and the year in which the relevant voyage ended. For other years, some crew agreements were taken by local record offices. Information on holdings at The National Archives and local record offices are described in The National Archives' Merchant Seamen: Agreements and Crew Lists after 1861.

All those remaining (about 70% of the total) are now in the care of the Maritime History Research Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland, A1B 3Y1, Canada. The Collection offers a research service and will provide copies of documents for a fee based on cost recovery. Crew agreements for foreign-going vessels were submitted to the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen at the end of the voyage (replacing the copy deposited with the port authorities before departure) and it is this date that determines the year in which an agreement is filed. Coasters and fishing vessels submitted crew agreements bi-annually.

1939–1950

All surviving agreements and crew lists with their logbooks are held by The National Archives, Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU. Information on the holdings of The National Archives are decribed in The National Archives' Merchant Seamen: Agreements and Crew Lists after 1861.

Tel: +44 (0)20 8876 3444
1951–1977

A 10% specimen group of crew agreements is in The National Archives; the remaining 90% for years ending in '5' have been deposited with the National Maritime Museum. The Museum has 90% of the crew agreements for 1955, 1965, 1975 and 1985, but it should be noted that they are filed in official order number not ship order. All remaining papers have been transferred to the Maritime History Archive in Canada (detailed above).

1978 onwards

The National Archives and the National Maritime Museum each hold 10% of crew agreements and lists of this period. The remaining, which dated to 1989, have been destroyed. All crew agreements and lists from 1999 are held by the Registry of Shipping and Seamen. Papers may be temporarily unavailable while in store or in transit.

Indexes

The Maritime History Archive in Canada has produced the Maritime History Archive Crew Lists Index (1863 - 1938) arranged by ship's official number. A similar index has been compiled to the papers held by local record offices and one is in preparation for The National Archives holdings. Copies of indexes produced by the Maritime History Archive and local record offices are in the National Maritime Museum's Library.

No indexes by ship's name or by names of crewmen have yet been compiled for the agreements held in the four main repositories, although some local record offices have indexes by ship's name to their holdings.

Official ship's number

This can be found by consulting the Mercantile Navy List or, after 1872/3, Lloyd's Register of Shipping. For muster rolls and agreements before 1854, the ship's port and registry number can be found through the indexes to ship registrations, 1786–1854, in The National Archives.

Official logs

British merchant ships were first required to keep an official log under the Merchant Shipping Act of 1850 and logs start to appear among official records from 1852 onwards. Many were later discarded, with only those recording a birth or death on board normally being retained. The survival rate is about 20%, except during the First and Second World Wars, for which all logs containing any entries were preserved.

Surviving logs are always to be found with the appropriate crew agreement, except between 1905–12 and 1914–18. For those years most are kept separately, at The National Archives, in class BT 165. The indexes to the Maritime History Archive's holdings of crew agreements indicate whether or not a log is available with the crew agreement. Copies of deck logs or journals survive only in rare instances and are not among official records.

The National Maritime Museum's manuscript collections include a few examples of logs and the Library has a copy of Log of Logs: a catalogue of logs, journals, shipboard diaries, letters and all forms of voyage narratives, 1788 to 1988, for Australia and New Zealand, and surrounding oceans (Museum library reference 930.253.4:656.61.09), by Ian Nicholson (Roebuck Society Publication no.41, Aranda, 1990), which may be useful for tracing others.

Next steps

Other guides in the series which may be useful for researching merchant ships' crews are:

Research guide C2: The Merchant Navy: Tracing people: Master mariners, mates and engineers
Research guide C4: The Merchant Navy: Sources for enquiries
Research guide C5: The Merchant Navy: Sources for ship histories
Research guide C6: The Merchant Navy: The Mercantile Navy List
Research guide C8: The Merchant Navy: Wrecks, losses and casualties
Research guide C9: The Merchant Navy: World War One
Research guide C10: The Merchant Navy: World War Two
Research guide C11: The Merchant Navy: The Handy Shipping Guide
Research guide C12: The Merchant Navy: Ship registration and Custom House records
Research guide E1: World War Two: Papers in the National Maritime Museum
Research guide E2: World War Two: The Dunkirk List
Research guide H3: Lloyd's: Lloyd's Captains' registers
Research guide H5: Lloyd's: Registers held at the National Maritime Museum
For general research help see:
Research guide A2: Principal records for maritime research at the National Maritime Museum
Research guide A3: Tracing family history from maritime records