researching your family history?
Elder Dempster Lines - Histories
Key resources are listed on the Elder Dempster company history page on this website
Fleet Lists
Details of the fleet lists of Elder Dempster Lines, together with those ships absorbed from
British and Burmese Steam Navigation Company and of Guinea Gulf Line, are on this website.
The Elder Dempster Archive
Some of the company records went to the Maritime Museum in Liverpool,
but much of the Elder Dempster records were lost in May 1941 when the head office of India Buildings was gutted by fire during an air raid on Liverpool. Look at the
information sheet
from the museum, which gives details of the Elder Dempster Archive. The
museum website
gives more general information, together with contact details.
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum
holds useful information, including
research guides relating
to the Merchant Navy.
The National Archives
Much information and detail is available through The
National Archives (Public Record Office).
Merchant Navy research guides can be searched and there is also the comprehensive book -
All Merchant Navy officers and seamen have an identity number - the Discharge Number, often referred to
in documents as the Dis.A. number, a six digit number (later prefixed by a letter R) - together with a document
entitled Seamen's Record Book and Certificates of Discharge (usually known as their Discharge
Book), and also a British Seaman's Card. All would have to sign on Articles for each ship they sailed on,
irrespective of whether they were company employees or not.
Records of Merchant Shipping and Seamen
Public Record Office Readers' Guide No 20
K Smith, C T Watts, and M J Watts
first published 1998, reprinted 2001
Public Record Office
ISBN 1 873162 49 9
Society of Genealogists
The Society of Genealogists
publishes a range of useful works, including -
|
My Ancestor was a Merchant Seaman
C Watts and M J Watts second edition, 2002 Society of Genealogists ISBN 1 903462 51 5 |
Guildhall Library, London
The Marine History (Printed Books section) of Guildhall Library cares for
the major part of the Lloyd’s Marine Collection, the other part of the
collection being held in the Manuscripts Section. The Lloyd’s Marine Collection is a major resource for merchant shipping
records from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century (this latter date is not fixed as Lloyd’s has deposited
material for a series of different dates).
There is a published guide to the Lloyd’s Marine Collection, Lloyd’s Marine Collection and
Related Marine Sources at Guildhall Library, which can be obtained from
the Guildhall Library Bookshop.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The duties of the CWGC are to mark and maintain the graves of service personnel (including
those of the Merchant Navy), to build and maintain Memorials to those who had no known grave,
and to keep detailed registers. One of the guiding principles is that each of the dead
should be commemorated individually by name, either on a headstone or on a Memorial. The
CWGC website can be searched to trace
an individual, and to locate their grave or the Memorial on which they are commemorated.
Merchant Navy Memorial
The Merchant
Navy Memorial at Tower Hill in London lists the names of almost 12,000 merchant
seamen from the Great War who have no grave but the sea, together with almost 24,000 names from
the War of 1939-1945. The register of those commemorated on the Memorial can be searched on the CWGC website.
and finally
The various
links to other websites
from this Elder Dempster website may be useful, and general
information on tracing your family history
can be found on the BBC website.
all text © Mike Ingham
book cover © publishers and authors
The History of Elder Dempster © Paul Wood - Rakaia.co.uk
Elder Dempster Lines House Flag © Elder Dempster Lines
this page last updated 23 February 2024
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