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 William Roberts service record - help!
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| thornel |
Posted on 29/03/2008 01:29
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 New Member  Posts: 5 Joined: 03/05/2007 |
Hi all, I am finding the nat Archives a bit overwhelming... am on the right track with the page "Family History: Registers of Seamen's Services' ? I have spent hours trying to figure it out. Some advice would be appreciated greatly. There is a coloured photo of him on this site and details. He was born July 9th 1809 in Plymouth, Devon (I think) and died in 1881 at Bangor, Ireland. thank you very much, Lara-may |
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| crimea1854 |
Posted on 29/03/2008 07:02
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 Administrator  Posts: 906 Joined: 09/07/2007 |
Hi Lara-may and welcome to the forum. I'm afraid you are in for a real challenge. With a name like William Roberts there will inevitably be quite a few records, none of which may be your man! The records you are currently looking at online on the NA's website, are seamans service records FROM 1872. I have looked on line and found only one likely candidate (link below). However, if by shear good fortune this is your man, this record should contain his previous Continuous Service number and allow you to order from the NA a copy of any prior service from 1853 upto 1872, when the above set of records began. http://www.nation...ltcount=31 The other online route to follow is to go to the NA's main Catalogue page, enter his name, and in the Department or Series box enter 'ADM', and then do a search. http://www.nation...search.asp If you found the above records confusing, you're in for a ball with these results! What this will return is every Admiralty record that the NA have CURRENTLY catalogued where there is a mention of a William Roberts. What you will then have to do is sift through these for likely matches. Unfortunately the information given was not always accurate, so you will have to find the most likely matches, place online orders for the documents and accept that the rest is down to luck!  Below is an example of what I mean. This is a pension application for a William Roberts - Coastguard. No place of birth has been provided, age on entry was given as 22, his first service was in 1826, so his date of birth should be 1804. However, ages are not always accurate, which means this record COULD be for your man. http://www.nation...ssmethod=0 I hope this has been of some help. Best of Luck Martin Edited by crimea1854 on 29/03/2008 17:30 |
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