How Do I Research a Merchant Ship Loss?

What should you look for first?

Research a loss from the ship's papers, casualty records and commemoration entries together. Merchant losses at sea often have no grave, so the commemoration entry and the ship record together carry the story.

Start from the person, not from the record type, and fix name, number, unit and dates as firmly as you can before you open anything. If the clue you hold is a story, break it into testable pieces before you search. A story searched as a whole can only be confirmed or denied, never tested.

A step by step way through

If the steps feel slow, that is the point. Speed in this work usually means a skipped check, and skipped checks are where wrong timelines begin. Treat each step as a test with a possible negative result. A step that can only confirm is not a test, and a research plan made of confirmations is a story, not a timeline. Keep three lists apart as you work: what you know, what you suspect, and what you do not know. Research goes wrong when a suspicion is written into the timeline as if it were a fact.

• Fix the seaman identity details, name and any discharge number, before opening ship records.
• Use the discharge book to list ships and voyages in date order.
• Open the crew agreement for each ship and voyage, and note its reference.
• Test every ship movement against the discharge book before adding it to the timeline.

How to read this kind of entry

Entries in pencil, entries in ink, and entries stamped later are not the same kind of evidence. The medium often tells you when an entry was made. A date written in one format on one sheet and another format on the next is the same date wearing two formats. Convert carefully, and keep the original.

A careful reading ends with questions, not with certainty. If a file leaves you with no questions at all, you probably read it too fast. A summary page at the front of a file is a later compilation, and compilations introduce errors. Use it as a map, and verify its claims sheet by sheet.

Where this kind of research usually stalls

Do not let a single failed search end the inquiry. Note what was searched, what filters were used, and what remains untried, and the next session starts from that list. A photograph with no caption, a medal with no roll entry, and a story with no dates are all the same problem: a clue without a filter.

• A gap between voyages recorded elsewhere.
• A ship loss that scattered the surviving paper.
• A merchant record filed apart from a Royal Navy record.
• A common name with no discharge number to separate two men.

The next record in the chain

If this record answered your question, stop and note the reference. The next record should start from a new question, not from momentum. If a related guide looks irrelevant, read its first paragraph before dismissing it. Irrelevance is often a misjudged title, not a misplaced guide.

A next step that is easy is not necessarily the right one. The right next step is the one the timeline needs, and it is often the awkward one. End with the record, not with the story. The record will still be there tomorrow, and the story will be better for waiting.