General Chat

Please could someone tell me where the death of an English-born shipwright would have been recorded at that time? (see below)

My ancestor was born in Sunderland in 1804, I believe he was party to a Marriage Allegation in Whitby in 1828, but he married in Sunderland in 1831 (I have a certificate for this). Thereafter I can find no record of him, nor any certain record of his wife's birth. All I have is a certificate of birth of a son in 1840 in Stockton-on-Tees. I cannot believe that this seafaring ancestor of mine is still floating about in the North Sea on some ghostly ship. Any ideas where I might locate his death, please? CB >|<

Thanks for the replies, girls. I've no idea which ship he was on, only that he wasn't in the Navy - he worked on merchant ships. This has been a puzzle for months now, and another relative with far more FH experience has also been unable to trace these people. I've checked LDS and FreeBMD, but although Ancestry give some deaths that might be him, I can't pinpoint which one he is. It's really annoying, but I'll get them eventually. CB >|<

CB Have you looked at wills/admons? Men dying abroad often appear either on Documents Online if they left a will, or you have to search through the annual calendars of admons (available on open shelves at the FRC). I think that Trinity House Petitions were for the wives and orphans of seamen rather than shipwrights, but that's another source for the period. The Society of Genealogists have produced an index and hold the original documents in their library.

Brenda, Thank you. I will follow up your suggestions. CB >|<

Thanks, Viv. Another lead for me to follow. CB >|<

Nationalarchivist(.)com has BMDs at sea for 1854-1890.

CB all my dad's side were shipwrights, but they were shore based. They worked in the shipbuilding yards alongside the Thames in the East End, but I think they may have originally come from Bristol. Maybe yours moved to another port to find work? I have found by chance some of mine who moved to the most unlikely places! One was a rigger from Poplar, who Lynda then found for me living years later in Gravesend! My grandfather had an accident at work and had to give up shipwrighting(?) - he moved to Southend and became a sub-postmaster! Hopefully you are searching an unusual name??!! Happy Hunting! Maz. XX

Hi Maz, Thanks for that info. The shipwrights in my ancestry were all based in Co Durham and North Yorkshire, and I've found references to some shipwrights and mariners from other branches of the family in Suffolk, Essex, Kent and Hampshire, as well as Perthshire and Orkney in Scotland - none so far on the Western side of Britain until the 1920s. I got a bit confused when I found some of them in Deptford and Fulwell, as I knew those places to be in the London area, but there are also places with those names in Sunderland! That made much more sense, as that's where most of the family were born and lived. CB >|< X

Don't forget to look at 1837 which has death records at sea under the Overseas Page. Regards Keith

CB I wouldn't worry about Sunderland people cropping up in Deptford. Lots of my Norfolk lot went up to Sunderland as merchant seamen, but you get references to them all over the shop, especially London and Greenwich. The coastal trade seems to have been down to London and back, but they are also heading off to the Baltic and even St Petersburg. I would agree to what you say about sticking to the east coast: they never seem to make the extra leap to travel round to the south.

There was a lot of shipping coal going on down from the area around Co Durham to main ports south . The seaman probably didn't need to make many overseas journeys to have a living as I guess it was probably a lot of work on the past equivalent of coasters, bit like a marine conveyor belt of ships going to and fro.