Where to find records for merchant navy, early 1800s?

[baytree1970]

I have a couple of ancestors from Bristol in the early 1800s described as 'mariners' - does anyone know where I might find maritime records for them?

thank you

[Morris2013]

I am not sure if this will be of any help, but I have the same issue with an ancestor from the 1840s who was a sailmaker on sailing ships

If you are in UK, then I think it helps if you know whether Royal Navy or Merchant Navy.

Ancestry seem to have some docoments of people who were apprenticed in the Merchant Navy in early 19th century

I looked at  CLIP  on crewlist.org.uk and rmg.co.uk (Greenich Maritime Museum) and National Archives in Kew,  but I just got confused

Different resources seem to be held in different places, and it depends on the dates, and for some,  you need to know not only the name of the Merchant ship but also its unique registration number.

The person in my tree is from the Shetland Isles and I am hoping that the Shetland Archives may have some information.

Good luck. I will be very interested to see if you get a better informed response than mine from someone with experience searching.

[HMac]

For the early 1800's - not easy.

Unfortunately, there was no systematic registration of seamen prior to 1835.  There are however some muster rolls dating from 1747 to 1857 in The National Archives’ sequence BT 98.  These are incomplete and are based on the port of registry and the date of sailing. You will also need to know the name of the ship in order to carry out your search.

1835 - 1844: First Register of Merchant Seamen

The Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen initially compiled indexed registers of seamen using ships’ crew lists.  The seamen were then issued with a seaman's or master's ticket, each with their own unique number.  This index became known as the First Register of Merchant Seamen.

Regards
Hugh