Register of seamen, 1835-1857
Register of Seamen Series I, 1835-1836
The first series in BT 120
is an alphabetical set of five registers, which were soon abandoned. The entries give name, age, birthplace, quality (i.e. post held), and name of ship on which they were serving.
Register of Seamen Series II, 1835-1844
The second series in BT 112 is supposed to incorporate the seamen entered in the first. This register is in two parts, one covering Home Trade and one covering Foreign Trade. It is necessary to search both parts; these can be in separate volumes or separate sections of the same volume. There is an alphabetical index to seamen in BT 119, for Home Trade only, that provides a reference number to get you into BT 112.
Register of Seamen´s Tickets, 1845-1854
Seamen´s tickets in BT 113 are indexed in an alphabetical register in BT 114, giving name, birthplace and ticket no. You can then look up the entry in the register. This will give place and date of birth, a physical description, date first went to sea, whether served in the Royal Navy, whether been on Foreign Service, and place of residence when not at sea. It also gives coded details of reported voyages. The information in these records is particularly useful as seamen will not normally appear in the census returns of 1841 and 1851 unless ashore.
Register of Seamen Series III, 1853-1857
The third series in BT 116 was a simplified system, listing seamen alphabetically. These records give ages, places of birth and details of voyages.
