The Royal Navy - Tracing People

Research guide B1: The Royal Navy: Tracing people

This guide explains where and how to access the service records of the Royal Navy (which are held primarily at The National Archives), and lists some of the books in the Museum's Caird Library which can be used to research people who have served in the Royal Navy and its history.

Official records

Most Admiralty records are deposited with The National Archives: Ruskin Avenue Kew Richmond Surrey TW9 4DU Tel: +44 (0)20 8876 3444

What you will find there:

Few centralised records of seamen were kept before 1857. In general you need to know the name of a serviceman’s ship in order to look him up. The muster roll or crew list should note where he was before and after his service in that ship, so you can track most people backwards and forwards from that point.

Records of Greenwich Seamen's Hospital and other hospitals; pensions and grants received; medals awarded, etc., up to the end of the 19th century.
Records of commissioned officers, warrant officers, tradesmen, etc, up to the end of the 19th century.

Lieutenant's logs

The lieutenant's logs were kept by the lieutenants of a ship in commission, recording details of weather, navigation and routine of the ship, as well as incidents that occurred during the commission. Printed formats appeared from about 1799, with the Admiralty laying down a standard form in October 1805 when the practice of starting the day's log at midnight to coincide with the civil calendar was begun (the nautical calendar had previously run from noon).
At the completion of each year, a lieutenant's log was required to be deposited in the Admiralty Office, where the chief clerk abstracted details of the voyage and, in return for a fee, sent the log to the Navy Office where a clerk in the off of the Clerk of the Acts made out a certificate entitling the Lieutenant to be paid. At the Navy Office individual logs were bound into volumes by ship name.

For a time in the 18th century the logs were collected by year as well as name, so logs of four or five ships (usually starting with the same letter) may be bound together. Any captain's logs that are bound with these logs are usually duplicates of those kept by The National Archives.
Books

Reference numbers given in italics refer to the Museum's Library and manuscripts catalogue.
Steel's Navy List - editions spanning 1787–1816. Incomplete run, but printed as frequently as monthly. Lists officers, ships and establishments including officers of Sea Fencibles before 1810. Miscellaneous intelligence reports, vessels captured, prize money awards.

Lean's Navy List - editions spanning 1878–1916. Information on officers alphabetically and by seniority, including short biographies of their service and decorations. Also lists of ships and establishments with serving officers.

Navy Lists - editions from 1814 to date. The amount of information shown in these lists changes with time but they record officers (retired and active) and ships, where ships were stationed, pay scales, uniform regulations, etc. They were published between one and several times a year at different periods. Copies are also held at the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth.
Charnock, J., Biographia Navalis (London: R Foulder, 1794-98). 92.355.33.094*
Marshall, J., Royal Naval Biography, 12 volumes (London: Longman, 1823–30). 92.355.33*
O'Byrne, W. R., A Naval Biographical Dictionary, 2 volumes, (London, J Murray, 1849). 92.355.33(42)*

Rodger, N. A. M., Naval Records for Genealogists (London: HMSO,1988). A guide to all classes of records and where to find them. 930.253.4:359

Syrett, David, ed., The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy, 1660–1815, (Aldershot: Scolar Press for Navy Records Society, 1994). This gives an alphabetical list of officers with known dates of promotion. An earlier facsimile copy (unpublished) of this work is available at the National Maritime Museum, annotated with the names of ships on which each officer is known to have served. 061.22NRS

* Many of the entries in these three sources have also been included in the British Biographical Index, edited by D Bank and A Esposito, published in microfiche with printed index by K G Saur, Sevenoaks, 1990.

Next steps

Other guides in the series which may be useful for researching the Royal Navy are:

Research guide B3: The Royal Navy: Sources for enquiries

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