Filed under Merchant Navy Records: A Method Guide
What to check first in this record
Merchant ratings describe jobs aboard ship, from deck and engine room to catering and steward work. Read the rating with its voyage dates, because a rating could change between voyages.
If any one of the four filters fails, name, number, unit, dates, stop and re-check before reading further into the record. Where the clue is thin, say so in your notes. A thin clue handled honestly leads to a careful search; a thin clue dressed up as a fact leads to a wrong person.
The order to work in
The steps below assume you have already fixed the person, the number, and the dates as far as you can. If you have not, do that first, and then return. Work one question at a time, and resist the urge to answer three questions from one record. A record that answers one question well beats a record stretched across three. Opening several records at once is how two people with the same name get merged into one timeline, so keep the work sequential and deliberate. A reference without a date, or a date without a reference, is half a note. Both halves are needed before the note can be used.
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fix the seaman identity details, name and any discharge number, before opening ship records. |
| 2 | Use the discharge book to list ships and voyages in date order. |
| 3 | Open the crew agreement for each ship and voyage, and note its reference. |
| 4 | Test every ship movement against the discharge book before adding it to the timeline. |
Reading what the record actually says
A name in a unit document proves presence only when name, rank, role and dates all match the person you are researching, not when the surname alone matches. Read for the unit, the ship, or the station as well as for the person. A person entry makes sense only inside the unit entry that surrounds it.
A promotion, a transfer or a posting that looks sudden usually has an earlier entry behind it. Work backwards from the surprise, one dated entry at a time. If you cannot read a word, mark it unread rather than guessing it. A guessed word, once written into a timeline, is very hard to dislodge.
Common traps in this record type
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. Where a record set is arranged by unit rather than by surname, a surname search alone will miss it. Mirror the catalogue structure, and the record set opens up. Change one filter at a time, spelling, initials, number, unit or date range, and keep a note of which combinations you have already tried.
The next record in the chain
Use the pillar guide for this section as a map, and the neighbouring guides as the detail for the exact point you have reached. Move from personal records to unit records, or from unit records back to personal ones, deliberately. Each direction answers a different kind of question.
A useful discipline is to state the next step as a record, a reference, and a question, in one sentence, before you leave this guide. Read slowly, note references as you go, and let the chain of records, not enthusiasm, decide how far the timeline extends.
Primary sources for this guide
This guide keeps its claims general and points to the official holders, so the holder itself is the place to check the current position. It is general educational information only, not personal professional advice, and it offers no record lookup service and no determination of any individual's service.