3,559 Born in Greece - United Kingdom, Merchant Navy Seamen Records, 1835-1941

The FamilySearch.org website offers FREE access to their database - UNITED KINGDOM, MERCHANT NAVY SEAMEN RECORDS, 1835-1941 .  There are 3,559 people in the database who have listed Greece as their place of birth.


DESCRIPTION OF DATABASE by FamilySearch.org

An act of Parliament required agreements and crew lists to be filed with the Register Office of Merchant Seamen to create a means of manning the Royal Navy in wartime.

Registration of merchant seamen was provided for in the 1835 Merchant Shipping Act. Seamen were engaged by the voyage at this period, and there was no permanent merchant service. The registers were made up from the new returns of agreements and crew lists for each voyage. In 1857 the use of seamen’s registers was discontinued.

This collection includes records for the years 1835 to 1857.

Record Content

Series I, BT 120, 1835-1844, includes the following information:

• Ticket number
• Name with surname first, followed by the given name
• Age
• Place of birth
• Quality – whether a seaman, a master, a foreman, a carpenter, a mate (position on board the ship)
• Ship belonging to (name of the ship and the port it docked at such as London, Liverpool, etc.)
• How disposed of (in most cases nothing is mentioned. In some cases a desertion is noted with the date and the location)

Series II, BT 112 with index in BT 119, 1835-1844, includes the following information:

• Number
• Name, with surname first, then given name
• Age
• Place of birth
• Multiple fields for entering multiple voyages, which include a code for the ship’s name, and destination of the voyage

BT 113, 1845-1854, includes the following information:

• Ticket number
• Name with given name first followed by surname
• Place of birth
• County of birth
• Date of birth
• Capacity
• Height
• Hair color
• Complexion
• Eye color
• Marks
• First went to Sea as
• Year (first went to sea)
• Has served in the Royal Navy
• Has been in Foreign Service
• When unemployed, resides at
• Issued at (place ticket was issued)
• Date (ticket was issued)
• Age in 1845
• Age when ticketed
• Can write
• Multiple columns by year in order to record out voyages and return voyages. A ship number was used to indicate which ship the seaman sailed on.

BT 114, index to BT 113 includes the following information:

• Number of register ticket
• Name, surname first followed by given name
• Place of birth or residence

Series III, BT 116, 1853-1857 (no index) includes the following information:

• Name (given name first, followed by surname)
• Place of birth
• Age
• Multiple columns for each year
• Under each year column there are two columns, one for outbound voyages and one for return home voyages. The date and ship are entered into the columns for each voyage taken.
• Remarks