BT 159 - Deaths at Sea

[Uncle Reff]

I have found an ancestor on the recently digitised National Archives BT 159 series - Registers of Death at Sea of British Nationals, 1875-1891.

The image that I have been able to download contains the person's name, the name of the ship, age and 'page'.

Presumably being a register, the 'page' refers to some other document, but I could not find anything about what this could be on either the NA or the BMD Registers websites.

Does anyone know what this refers to and if indeed still exists?

Ta - John

[Bilge]

Is it the entry reference for the Lloyds Register. I am only guessing here.

[robesur]

Is it the Page no. which you need to quote when ordering a copy of the certificate from the GRO?
When ordering any BMD certificate we have to quote a volume no. and a Page no. With Overseas certificates, although I have never ordered one, it is a similar system, you just select the overseas section.

[dawnsh]

Hi John

Have you crossed referenced the entry you have found with the GRO marine & naval death indices?

You can search on sites like findmypast

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/BmdAtSeaStartSearchServlet?event=D

Sometimes though deaths at sea were recorded by the owners of the ships and the British authorities abroad were never informed of these events, depends where they took place

Some deaths at sea that occured during WW2 (where ships were torpedoed, sunk, all life lost etc) are recorded in the registers available at Kew but are not found in the GRO index.

Dawn

[Mean_genie]

John

What was the search that you did? If I can repeat the same search and see the actual page you are looking at I may be able to help.

Mean_genie