Hi,
I'm struggling to find records for a James NORTHAM in England and he did have connections to Jersey and Guernsey as the ships he served on sailed between there and Southampton on a daily basis - I wondered if anyone can:
1) locate him on the 1881 census in the Channel Islands please?
2) locate a widow with the surname of Northam in the CI in 1901 or 1911 (as he was drowned in a ship sinking in 1899)?
3) if anyone can find him anywhere on the 1861, 71 or 81 censuses WITH a link to being a seaman/navy etc or of being of the correct age (b. 1857) AND in Exeter or thereabouts?
4) find a birth or marriage record for him that fits a birth date of 1857/8 in Exeter - the ones I have located are way out.
Here is what I know:
a) I have found him on board the S.S Lydia on the 1891 census, born Exeter, 1857/8.
b) His official at-sea death record lists him as James NORTHAM, cook, b. Exeter, no address given, age 42 (so this confirms the birth year as about 1857).
c) the newspapers across the UK appealed for his heirs to come forward, suggesting that they hadn't been located, and that he was on the crew list of the ill-fated ship as VENTHAM, born 1857 in Exeter but the subsequent enquiry changed his name to NORTHAM. Possibly he wasn't married therefore, as these men on these particular ships appear to have sailed multiple times on the same short duration voyages and all of them either lived in Southampton, Hampshire or Jersey in close-knit merchant shiping communities (or stayed at seamen's homes in those places) - therefore if he had been married, it's highly likely that the other seamen and/or their wives would have known about it, to tell the authorities. But the heirs were being appealed for four months after his death in nationwide newspapers, which suggests nobody knew of a wife or children.
d) I have also found a record of a man called James NORTHAM being found not guilty of robbery in Exeter in 1870, where he was described as a First class petty officer in HM Navy.
e) There was a Samuel James NORTHAM b.in Exeter in 1859 but he died a few months later.
However I can find nothing else that is likely to be him, only unconnected possibilities. There is nothing for him in the specialist Navy or Merchant Navy records on Anc, FindMyPast or FS. Nothing on TNA. Nothing in Hampshire Archives. No apprenticeship records. Nothing at all under VENTHAM. No likely shared trees on Anc or FindMyPast.
Help would be very much appreciated.
