Mercantile Marine records, 1850s: interpretation.

[ainslie]

Ford Ainslie was a midshipman who was drowned in the wreck of the 'Prince', off Balaklava in the great storm of November 1854.
I have downloaded a page from TNA's records, ref BT 113/252 where his Register Ticket number is given as 503,720.  In the column for 1851 his rank is shown as 'Mid', for midshipman, with the following numbers which may refer to the ships he sailed in: 3136, 644, with 16 below.
For 1853 the rank is the same, then 6820, 6410, with 5 below, then a new entry of 6820, 6411 with 3 below.

If anyone can interpret these codes I should be grateful.  From other sources I have learned than he was 6th Officer in  'Prince' when she was lost.

Ainslie

[seaweed]

Problem is with these records there is no consistency in the way they are written but what I can tell you is this. In 1851 he sailed on a London registered ship, 64 was the London port number, with the port rotation number 3136. There is no known "key" to connect port rotation numbers to an individual ships name. The rest of the numbers are the date a particular voyage ended. 16th April
The only way to find the name of the ship is to trawl through the 1851 London Crew agreements looking for the vessel with the port rotation number 3136. This is not as easy as it sounds as there are some 42 box's to look through

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_st=adv&_ep=london&_cr1=bt98&_dss=range&_sd=1851&_ed=1851&_ro=any
 Ironically these records are stored by ships name!  A trip to Kew is required. Be aware that some of these records have been lost or destroyed.
Likewise for the vessel with the PRN 6820 in 1853.

[Westoe]

Hello Ainslie and Seaweed,

I believe there is another possible way to find the ships' names, although it would also involve a visit to Kew, if that is where the London Customs House Registers are kept.

A list was made, each calendar year commencing January 1st, of the shipping registered to each port and each vessel was assigned a number (their port rotation number for that particular year) in the order in which their registrations were renewed. The list was written into the Customs House Registers.

That system meant that vessels which were in their home port on January 1st of any given year were given low port rotation numbers for that year, wheras those abroad on long voyages and not returning to home port until late in the calendar year would have much higher numbers. This explains why a vessel could have a different port rotation number every year - it all depended on her place in the re-registration queue.

Ainslie's question is one that appears over and over again on maritime and genealogical forums. It's true that if every searcher were to go through Customs House Registers looking for the answers to that question, those registers would all have crumbled into dust by now. However we have to hope that increasing the demand for access to those registers will more speedily promote having them all digitized or microfilmed and made more available.

EDIT: Even with a vessel name, to find a given seaman aboard a vessel means trawling through those boxes of crew agreements for that year, BUT ... it means trawling through far fewer boxes than not having a vessel name.

Cheers,
Westoe

[ainslie]

Thank you both for helpful replies.  It is unlikely that I will be visiting Kew [200 + miles away], but is it possible to do a reverse search in any online material, given two possible names of vessels, namely 'Calcutta' and 'La Scala' which have cropped up in searches?

A

[Westoe]

Hello Ainslie,

If you have access to historical newspaper databases, it *might* be possible from the Shipping News columns to match up those vessel names with a home port name e.g. you might find references to "CALCUTTA of London" or "LA SCALA of London" - luckily these were not overly-commonly-found names unlike MARIA, VENUS, WILLIAM etc.

If they were indeed registered in London, you might also be able from the Shipping News to match up the dates of the returns to home port.

Given those, you would have suggestive circumstantial evidence. It would still require a trip to Kew to search through those crew agreements, but as I said in the EDIT to my first post above, it would mean trawling through far fewer boxes.

Cheers,
Westoe

[ainslie]

Thanks again.  Sorry for delayed response but Olympic-watching taking up too much time.
Your helpful hints have been noted for reference and possible action in the unlikely event of a trip to Kew.
A

[seaweed]

You live and learn. Thanks for sharing Westoe.