Help with merchant navy records from 1830s

[paulalou]

Hi,

I've located a merchant navy record on FindMyPast.co.uk for someone who I believe to be my ancestor but I'm not sure what the words say. To look at the original image, go to FindMyPast.co.uk and search the Merchant Navy & Maritime records for Andrew Gibb in 1835 (from North Shields), Andrew is record 3144 on the image. I'm assuming each column is a voyage and I can read dates, are these of dates sailed? Can anyone help me what the other written letter/words say and mean? There are also two other Merchant Navy records for an Andrew Gibb of North Shields in 1841. His wife said she was a widow in the 1841 census and I've not been able to find a death record for Andrew so I'm intrigued by these new finds, particularly the maritime record from 1841.

Thanks in advance.

[ColC]

The 3 sets of records on FindMyPast may or may not be the same person.

The initial above the name refers to their occupation eg S = sailor etc. http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/MerchantMarine.html

The numbers are the ports he sailed from eg 75 is Newcastle.
http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/ukportnos.html

The number below their name is likely to be their age at the time of registration.

Hope this helps.
Colin

[paulalou]

Thanks for replying and for the links. I didn't know about those pages and they should be really helpful.  Lots of reading now and getting acquainted with the merchant navy.

[chrisscales]

There is a little more info on BT112 here: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3153 and more general information here:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/merchantseamanbefore1857.htm
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/merchant-seamen-registers-1835-1857.htm
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/merchant-seamen-RGSS-register-abbreviations.htm

The names at the bottom are ships (looks like the Mars, Percy, then Mars again - probably not HMS Mars as there wasn't one at the time, these must be merchant ships), the 75 perhaps indicates Port no 75 which was Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the number following the 75 may be his number on the shipping manifest when returning from that particular journey.

Assuming that they sailed from Newcastle you may be able to find him in crew lists in BT98: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3139  - and his number on the crew lists for e.g. the Mars, would perhaps correspond with the number following 75.

Perhaps the MM and CC indicate trading routes, the guide says C and M stand for:

C   China, Japan and oriental archipelago
M   Mediterranean, Black Sea, Sea of Azoff, Adriatic


Hope that helps, I'm no expert but been looking into these Merchant/Navy records myself recently.

Chris