England Royal Navy Records (National Institute)

Civil Records
Civil Registration of vital events taking place at sea from 1837, (but mainly from 1851), including WWI and WWII War Deaths, were registered by the General Register Office, see the guidance given by The National Archives (TNA) leaflets D61 (Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea) and M13 (War Dead: First and Second World War).

CHART: Maritime Birth Indexes

CHART: Maritime Marriage Indexes

CHART: Maritime Death Indexes

Census Records
Sailors are rarely at home on census night, but when they are any mention of R.N. will alert you to their service in the Royal Navy; the most likely to be found on land are the inactive ones, for example Pensioner RN or RN Half Pay. Naval institutions such as schools and hospitals were enumerated of-course and will be found in their relevant district.

Many captains filled out returns for their ships from 1841, and from 1861 members of the Royal Navy (and passengers spending the night on board ship) anywhere in the world were recorded, as were merchant seamen and passengers on ships in British harbours. The returns for ships in British waters are found at the end of the household returns for the registration district in which their next port lay.

Those for the Royal Navy in foreign waters will be found at the end (highest numbers) of the record class, but as these are rarely their hometowns they are difficult to find without union indexes.

If your sailor of any rank was active in 1861 or 1881 there are two invaluable union indexes:


 * A complete index of 120,000 people on ships on the night of 7 April 1861 is on fiche set (8) with a companion fiche showing the ships enumerated on  (1).


 * The 1881 surname index for England and Wales has a separate Royal Navy section, which of-course includes R.N. sailors from Scotland and Ireland as well. These can be particularly useful sources for the Irish whose censuses are now missing.

If your ancestor, or his brother, was a sailor in 1861 or 1881 those indexes enable you to find birthplaces.

Church Records
Sailors tended to marry and have their children christened in port towns, and the registers of areas of Portsmouth (including Portsea, Landport, Alverstoke and Gosport), and of Plymouth (including East Stonehouse and Stoke Damerel) were huge. It is worth checking the original entries of marriage, christening and infant burial, and not just an index or a transcript, as the sailor’s ship was usually noted in at least some of them. The Hampshire Genealogical Society had special editions of its journal devoted to the port cities of Southampton (May 1999) and Portsmouth (Nov 1999) which make excellent background reading.

A kind of record which should not be overlooked is plaques and monuments in churches commemorating naval and other shipping disasters involving local men.

Naval Records
There are few records prior to the Civil War, but from the time of Restoration in 1660 there is an abundance of records still in existence which shed a great deal of light on seamen’s lives, including such details as what they looked like, what ships or shore bases they served on, where they went, promotions and punishments, and even what they ate! Most navy records were administered by the Admiralty and are thus in ADM classes, but some concerning wages come under the Paymaster General (PMG). In a similar manner to the army, the records of commissioned officers, warrant officers and ratings are different in type and organization.

Records of Royal Navy Commissioned Officers
Commissioned Officers were also referred to as Sea, Fighting, or Executive Officers. Below lists the main available records in date order and brief notes follow; consult Rodger for a more extensive survey.

CHART: Royal Navy Commissioned Officers Records 

Annual Lists The best place to start looking for an officer is in one of the several annual lists that record their names, rank, ship and date of commission, examples being:


 * Navy List, which started as Steel’s Navy List in 1782, names all commissioned officers including masters, pursers, surgeons, chaplains, yard officers, coast guardsmen and reservists. A copy of the 1795 list is on (item 2) and the volumes from 1851 to 1935 are, whilst fiche copies of 1821, 1851 and 1920 can be purchased from M.M. Publications.


 * Whitaker’s Naval and Military Directory and Indian Army List is available on and lists both officers and ships.

CHART: Whitaker’s Naval and Military Directory and Indian Army List 1899 Officers Listings

Ships Listings


 * Index to Commission and Warrant Books covers the period 1695-1742 giving dates of commissions and references to further sources at the Public Record Office.

Many other such lists may be found in the FHLC under GREAT BRITAIN -MILITARY RECORDS-NAVY as well as BIOGRAPHY and OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES, for example Admiralty Officials 1660-1870 as book 942 N2o v.4

There are several printed biographies of naval officers:


 * Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 by Syrett and Dinardo is, III on . 


 * Marshall’s Naval Biography 1760-1823. 


 * Charnock’s Biographica Navalis 1660-1794. 


 * British Naval Officers is a manuscript of 80 high ranking naval officers of the 1720-1820 period on item 6. 


 * O’Byrne’s Naval Biographical Dictionary based on the 1845 Navy List of all 5,000 living officers is on (15). A fiche reprint is also available from M.M. Publications.

CHART: O’Byrnes Naval Biography

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