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UK and Ireland: Merchant Marine
- The National Maritime Museum provides some very useful material including many online research guides and an extensive collection of online resources which can be searched or browsed.
- National Maritime Museum Cornwall - holds and provides an online catalogue to the Bartlett Library of 15,000 maritime reference books.
- Maritime Memorials - commemorating seafarers and victims of maritime disasters - searchable at the National Maritime Museum.
- Numerous editions of the major reference source Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping are available for download from Google books.
- Mariners. A mailing list for anyone who is researching their seafaring ancestors. For further details see the entry on John Fuller's pages, or visit the Mariners list website. This website provides some very useful guides:
- The Maritime History Archive has extensive records concerning British seamen, and trade between Newfoundland and South West England.
- Lloyd's Register: catalogue and information sheets.
- Lloyd's Register of Ships Online - Historical Editions - made available by Lloyd's Register Foundation.
- Lloyd's List marine news 1740-1837 - a index compiled by the Guildhall library and a set of volunteers.
- Lloyd's List 1793-1816 - scanned images, made available by Michael Dun, of the pages of this twice weekly news-sheet, which provided maritime intelligence and news, particularly on the status of ship voyages, captures, misadventures and losses.
- Passenger Lists:
- RMS Titanic Passengers and Crew.
- Emigrant from Sunderland 10 Sep 1852 to Melbourne.
- Lizzie Webber from Sunderland 31 July 1852 to Melbourne.
- Lord Delaval from Berwick upon Tweed on Sept 13th 1852 for London and on to Port St Philip, Victoria, Australia.
- Saldanha from Liverpool in the summer of 1856 for Victoria, Australia.
- Guy Mannering from Liverpool on May 22nd 1849 to New York.
- Lusitania from Plymouth to Adelaide on 1st July 1878 (single male emigrants).
- The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild currently have 281 transcribed passenger lists on their website.
- The Historical Maritime Society (HMS) exists to carefully research and re-enact the exciting times around the year 1805.
- See also National Archives leaflets:
- Maritime history records held in the UK and overseas
- Looking for records of a merchant seaman serving between 1858 and 1917
- Looking for records of a merchant seaman serving up to 1913 (archived copy)
- Looking for records of a merchant seaman serving after 1917
- Looking for records of an officer in the Merchant Navy
- Crew lists, agreements and log books of merchant ships 1747-1860
- Crew lists, agreements and log books of merchant ships after 1861
- Registration of merchant ships 1786-1994
- Abbreviations in merchant seamen's records
- Merchant seamen's medals and honours
- Officers in the Merchant Navy: further research 1845-1965
- Registration of Merchant Ships
- Looking for records of a person in the Royal Naval Reserve,
- LApprentice and Masters,
- Looking for records of a birth, marriage or death of a British national at sea or abroad,
- Ships Wrecked or sunk
- Coastguard Records
- Customs Officers
- Excise and Inland Revenue Officers
- Crew Lists of the British Merchant Navy - 1915, from the National Maritime Museum
- British Maritime History - A set of guides to what is available to those looking into merchant mariners', naval officers, and seagoing servants of the East India Company, by Len Barnett.
- An Index to "Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways" by H.N. Shore, 1892 (archived copy). (Henry N. Shore, later Lord Teignmouth, was Inspecting Officer of H.M. Coastguard in the late 19th Century. He gathered the material for this book from official records of the customs service and associated organisations, and from his personal experience.)
- Smugglers' Britain - the story of smuggling in 18th and 19th century Britain.
- Bob Sanders' "Tracing British Seamen & Master Mariners" provides some useful material and links.
- The Palmer List of Merchant Vessels is an international listing, but it includes details of many British ships, both steam and sail.
- Bob Sanders has provided a useful list of links to a wide variey of online Maritime Resources.
- Lighthouse Personnel in England and Wales and the Channel Islands 1841-1910 includes:- Table of Keepers; Table of Stations by county and a Location Map of the lighthouse sites. This material has been provided by the late Stan Waight and his team of contributors.
- British Coastguards and Their Familes - a detailed index to coastguards found mainly in census records. This material has been provided by the late Stan Waight and his team of contributors.
- Marjorie P. Kohli's "Immigration to Canada" (archived copy) provides links and information of value to those whose ancestors headed there in the 19th century.
- The British Library guidance on India Office records on the Maritime Service.
- Merseyside Maritime Museum Archive - "one of the finest collections of merchant shipping records in the UK".
- Through Mighty Seas - Merchant Sailing Ships of the NW of England (archived copy) - individual ship histories, and information on shipbuilders, shipyards, lifeboats, sea captains and mariners.
- Exeter Local Maritime Archives Project (ELMAP) - a searchable online database of references to records with maritime and naval significance held in local record offices and other archives across England and Wales.
- Michael Dun's War of 1812: Privateers contains, inter alia, extensive indexes about British privateers and their crew from National Archives files ADM 7/319 (Letters of Marque), and HCA 25/205 (Ships declarations).
- Benjidog Nautical Resources - a collection of sets of web pages, mainly related to the merchant navy.
- Portfolio: Exchequer Port Book Project - Digitisation and Transcription of the English and Welsh Exchequer Port Books held at the UK National Archives, 1565-1798 [TNA E 190 & 122]. (Provides an improved means of searching for port books, and some scanned images with their transcripts.)
- Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War - a Maritime ArchaeologyTrust project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to record what remains on the seabed and the South Coast foreshore of wrecked merchant and naval ships, passenger, troop and hospital ships, ports, wharfs, buildings and foreshore hulks.
- Black and Asian Seamen of the First World War explores the lives and contributions of the black and Asian seamen who lived, worked - and in many cases, died - on the vessels undertaking vital work during the First World War."
- Ships Nostalgia: "A forum community dedicated to Ships, boats, and vessel owners and enthusiasts".
See also under Emigration and Immigration.