Shipping records or similar

[ingrambr]

I'm not entirely sure if this belongs here, but I'm not sure where else I might go to get help.

I'm looking for shipping records or crew manifests 1978-79.  A foreign man would come and visit Liverpool on a cargo ship on which he was working every few months.  I'm looking for when I might find lists that I can search of passengers/crew on boats around that time so I can track him down.

This all sounds so very cryptic.  It's so my wife can find her father, who she never knew and her mother never got a name - these things happen.  We've already gone down the DNA test route on all sites, and no matches over 100cM yet.

I'm wondering whether a non-citizen might have left other traces in the UK on a visit?

Any ideas gratefully received!

[CaroleW]

Hi

How can you search any crew manifest if you don't have a name?   

[ingrambr]

Hi

How can you search any crew manifest if you don't have a name?

So the DNA tests gave us an ethnic identity for the person (which was wonderful information for my wife because she knows more about her identity) and there are quite a lot of recurring surnames cropping up in the trees of the DNA matches.  These aren't particularly close matches, but I think it at least gives me enough to go on the sift through lists of names and find potential candidates.

I'm trying to be vague about the country of origin, but it seems clear to me that it's unlikely he would have been working on a ship from his native country, and therefore I think his name might stick out like a sore thumb as well.  Or maybe landlocked countries do lots of shipping?

I agree though, this seems desperate, but I have some quite precise two week windows which I would need to search through, so could be doable.

[CaroleW]

You could try here

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/merchant-navy-ships-records-crew-lists-musters-and-log-books/

[Rena]

Have you tried the British Newspaper archive, which does  have copies of the Liverpool Echo newspaper for those years.

url link

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01s5m/

[still_looking]

Liverpool museums has Lloyds shipping index which covers up to 1980, might be a useful way of creating a starting list of potential ships
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/archivesheet62

S_L