Tracing WW1 Merchant Seafarers
This post is about finding non-officers who served on British merchant ships during WW1. The seafarers themselves may have come from many different countries.
I will talk about the sites that helped me find my maternal grandfather and the ships he sailed on between 1915 and his death at sea in 1918. Although some information can be found on subscription sites, to find my grandfather, able-seaman John Reid, I also needed to search elsewhere, including the National Archives at Kew.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
If you have heard a family story about a merchant seafarer who was lost at sea during the First World War and want to find out more I suggest you start your search at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
Just entering a name and selecting WW1 and merchant navy on the search page will bring up the details for casualties of that name. You will discover which ship each person was serving on at the time of death, the job they were doing and the date of death. The place of birth will be recorded and often the names of parents and a spouse. My grandfather’s entry included my grandmother’s maiden name and their home address which was very helpful. I knew I had found him as soon as I saw those details. Hopefully there will be enough family information to help you identify your relative quite easily. Once you know the date your ancestor died, search by that date to find others who died on the same ship.
What next?
Googling and searching newspaper archives is likely to give you some information about the ship’s sinking and how survivors were rescued. You don’t necessarily need to look at subscription sites. I often start searching at the excellent Australian newspaper resource Trove; I found several reports and articles about the SS Dwinsk on the site. However reports may not mention your relative by name and If you want to discover more about your ancestor’s time at sea you may need to try and find the crew list for their final voyage. The Dwinsk agreement survived the U-boat attack, and I have since checked other ships and found their crew lists too, so it is certainly worth looking. At the end of this blog I will share a little of what I discovered about my grandfather using crew lists and the accompanying log books. For me, knowing details about my grandfather’s life is about ensuring the father my mother never knew is remembered. If you are reading this because you had a relative who died at sea you may well feel the same way.
So what is a crew list?
Basically a ship’s crew list is an agreement which was made between the ship’s company, ship’s master and the seaman joining the crew of a particular ship. It recorded the crew member’s name, age, the previous ship the person worked on, and the dates of employment on the current ship. Most of the time addresses were also recorded, especially if the ship was engaged in foreign trade. By 1918 two address were often requested; the second was the address of the next of kin.
The crew list also indicated the rate of pay and noted when payments were made. Even if a crew member stayed with a particular ship they regularly signed new agreements. Employment was precarious. The date of discharge for all the men on the Dwinsk was 18 June 1918, the day the ship was torpedoed. When the ship sank they no longer had a job.
Before researching a merchant seafarer it may help to read More than a List of Crew from the Maritime History Archive in Newfoundland. It explains crew lists and gives very clear guidelines including tips on how to read the handwriting!
Sometimes the logbook for a voyage is located with the crew list. I have read about Incidents such as deaths, desertions, bad storms, collisions and fines for rule breaking within log books for ships my grandfather sailed on. They can make very interesting reading! Logs separated from the crew lists may be held in BT165 at TNA. It is worth checking.
How and where do you find crew lists?
The ship’s official number is often needed in order to find crew list in an archive catalogue. I found the number for the Dwinsk at Crew List Index Project, a wonderful site and, like More than a List of Crew, an essential read. Don’t just head for the search pages but explore the whole site. The search tool to find the ship’s official number enables you to use whatever part of the name you can read. This can be very useful when working from original documents which are hard to read because of handwriting or age. Once you have identified the ship on CLIP, the site may also indicate where you will find the actual documents. If not, try searching at the National Archives using the official number. The crew lists of well-known ships such as the HMS Carpathia are held within BT 100. If you have heard that a relative served on the Carpathia at the time of the HMS Titanic, that crew list is available to download from the National Archives at Kew.
Some of the agreements are now under the custodianship of the Maritime History Archive in Newfoundland, others are kept at the National Archive at Kew, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich or in other archives around the country. The Canadian archive does have a service for finding agreements and sending out copies.
Once you have found one agreement you can hopefully work your way back, one ship at a time, to your ancestor’s first ship, but even just one crew list will give you an interesting insight into the ancestor’s time at sea.
Isn’t there a central register for seafarers?
When I wanted to find my husband ‘s grandfather’s royal naval record I opened the search page at the National Archives website, entered his name, John Kennedy, and his birthplace, Annascaul, and there was the record ready to download showing the ships he served on throughout WW1.
This is not the case with merchant seamen. There isn’t a single document that will tell you all the ships your seafarer was on during the First World War. National Registers were established and then disbanded at different times in the 19th century. The third and final register from that period was disbanded in 1857. Another was started in 1913. This may have been helpful for tracing WW1 seafarers, had the 1913-18 records not been destroyed. The fourth register, a good starting place when searching for merchant seamen who survived the war, ran from late 1918 to 1941 and is available online at Find my Past. A search will uncover personal details, sometimes a photo, and official numbers for the ships on which the seafarer worked. These official numbers can be entered on CLIP to help find the location of crew lists. There are also transcriptions for Irish seamen at Irish Mariners.
Sometimes the logbook for the voyage is with the crew list and it will give further information about the voyage and, perhaps, details about your ancestors life on board ship. Logs are also held in BT165 at TNA if they became separated from the crew list so it is worth checking.
What about online?
The 1915 crew list project which was a joint venture undertaken by the National Archives and National Maritime Museum is a great place to look to try to locate your merchant seamen ancestors. If you don’t find your ancestor easily it may be worth searching with just the first name and the place of birth. The crew lists were working documents and some became quite faded or torn; transcription must have been very difficult. If you have an idea about the name of the ship you can also search that name or even by the official number.
I found a record for Jonathan Stafford, one of the subjects of my last post. In 1915 Jonathan served on several ships the under his birth name, Ackers. He also used the first name John. The age and place of birth matched, but the final proof was that the address he used to sign on the SS Arranmore .[1] It was the home of his mother and stepfather. Incidentally, John did not actually turn up to join this ship at the appointed time. The date of discharge column reads ‘failed to join’. This information did not appear on the transcript which reminds us to always check the original when they are available. James Stafford and his future stepson worked together on the SS Adriatic in April 1915. James’ previous ship was was the Lusitania which sank on 7 May 1915.[2] James probably considered he had a lucky escape to have changed ship when he did. He would have know many of the crew who died.
There are crew lists from Liverpool, Glasgow and Dorset on Ancestry but most are pre-WW1 and the collection from CLIP 1857-1913 is also on Find My Past. If you are searching for a seafarer who may have worked in an Irish port check out Irish Crew lists 1860-1921 which are available on the National Archives of Ireland genealogy website and also on Find my Past.
So what did I learn about my grandfather?
In total I traced my grandfather through 14 crew lists. The information I’ve gained from crew lists has allowed me to build a picture of the life he experienced at sea and to realise how much time my grandmother spent alone in Liverpool.
The details below come from the last three crew lists, all of which are held at the National Archives. This is just to give an idea of what you could find out by researching an ancestor though crew lists and log books. Family history is not just about collecting key dates but building a picture of their lives. All three of the ships were transporting soldiers from America to France.
On 17 October 1917 my grandfather signed on to the RMS Carpathia as an able seaman at the rate of £11 10s a month.[3] The purchasing power of his wage in 1917 would be the equivalent to £562 in 2019. The website Measuring Worth was used to help compare the values. On the 22 November the Carpathia left New York for France but before the day was over a tragic accident occurred. One of the soldiers was cleaning his gun when it discharged unexpectedly. A 23-year-old private from the 82 Aero Squadron Signal Corps, Fred M Cook, was killed.
My grandfather was discharged from the Carpathia on 30 January 1918 [4]and signed on to RMS Mauretania, sister ship to RMS Lusitania, just 2 days later.[5] When I turned the pages of the crew list I found it was torn and creased at the end of the page where he signed his name and the details difficult to read. Over a hundred years ago that crew list was a working document in regular use. It was produced every time a crew member joined or left the ship and there were hundreds of seafarers who signed their names or made a cross during the time it was in use. Little wonder some pages were tatty. The accompanying log recorded sailors died from bronchial pneumonia in the first week of April 1918. Maybe these deaths were related to the first wave of the Spanish Flu pandemic. I wonder if the deaths and a fear of the growing pandemic prompted my grandfather to leave the Mauretania on the 9 April. Next to his name in a list of discharges for that day it noted he was employed as the bosun’s mate.[6]
The Mauretania in Dazzle. At the time this photo was taken she was returning soldiers to New York after the war. It is part of the Bain News Collection and was taken on or about 2 December 1918.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-B2-1234] https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014708124/ accessed 12 February 2021.
As on the Carpathia my grandfather earned £11 10s a month as an able seaman aboard the SS Dwinsk. He did not receive an advance when he signed the agreement on 9 April 1918, but £3 a month from his wages was to be paid to my grandmother while he worked on the ship.[7] This was the equivalent of £147 pounds in 2019.
The stories of bad weather and a collision came from an earlier ship and will be told at another time.
References
[1] National Maritime Museum Greenwich. 1915 Crew lists. SS Arranmore. 17 July 1915. ACKERS, John https://1915crewlists.rmg.co.uk/document/195933 : accessed 11 February 2021.
[2] National Maritime Museum Greenwich. 1915 Crew lists. SS Adriatic April 1915. STAFFORD, James https://https://1915crewlists.rmg.co.uk/document/141823 : accessed 11 February 2021.
[3] Board of Trade. (Great Britain) Registry of shipping and seamen: agreements and crew lists series 111. Carpathia. 17 October. REID John. able seaman. British National Archives. BT100/313.
[4] Board of Trade. (Great Britain) Registry of shipping and seamen: agreements and crew lists series 111. Carpathia Log. Entry for 22 November 1917. British National Archives. BT100/313.
[5] Board of Trade. (Great Britain) Registry of shipping and seamen: agreements and crew lists series 111. Mauretania. 1 February 1918 REID John. British National Archives. BT100/351.
[6] Board of Trade. (Great Britain) Registry of shipping and seamen: agreements and crew lists series 111. Mauretania log. April 1918. British National Archives. BT100/351.
[7] Board of Trade. (Great Britain) Registry of shipping and seamen: agreements and crew lists series 11. Dwinsk. 9 April 1918. REID, John able seaman British National Archives. BT99/3466.