Ships´ pay books and musters
Ships´ pay books are in five series ADM 31
, ADM 32, ADM 33, ADM 34 and ADM 35. Ships´ musters are also in five series, ADM 36, ADM 37, ADM 38, ADM 39 and ADM 41. The earliest musters date from 1667 but many pre-1688 musters were destroyed in a fire. Muster books cease in 1878, as most of the later musters from 1878 to 1909 were destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War. Pay books commence from 1669 and run to 1856. All these series overlap with one another and should be checked for the ships on which your man served. All the records are arranged by ships name, which can be searched for on the catalogue. There are no overall surname indexes and to find a man you need to know in which ships he saw service.
The names of all the men serving on board a ship are noted in the musters and pay books as they determined the crew´s wages and consumption of victuals, some of which could be charged against their pay. Men over and in addition to the normal ship´s complement were entered as supernumeraries and entered in the books in a separate list.
The information may include age and, after 1761, place of birth, date of death, remittance of wages, whether sick and the name of the ship joined from or the ship to which transferring. Internal surname indexes, known as alphabets, because they are arranged by initial letter only, appear in pay books from around 1760 and in ships´ musters from 1797.
Description Books
Description books survive in the series ADM 38, and are identified in the catalogue by the letter ´D´ beside the ship´s name. They cover the period 1836 to 1872. They give a physical description of each man, his pay number, age, marital status, rank, dates of entry and discharge. Between 1840 and 1870 they give additional details including place of birth, home address, previous trade, etc and from 1853 the continuous service number. A few earlier description books can be found in ADM 36-37 and ADM 41.
