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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: faintman on Saturday 22 November 14 21:52 GMT (UK)
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Hi,
I would like some kind person to decipher what my ancestor did between 1853 and 1857 in the merchant Navy. I have this document and I cannot make out what it says, could someone please decipher it for me. The record I have tried numerous times to attach but I cannot do it. If members here have a subscription to findmypast.co.uk that could help me with the record. The image is found on this link
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=tna%2fmsea%2fbtoth%2f4650219%2f00408&parentid=tna%2fbt116%2f2132404283%2f1&highlights=%22%22
or can be search for via searching for joseph butcher born 1835 in the world section under Demerara. It is the eighth one down the page and the record has the reference on the left side of the page BT 116/14.
thank you for taking the time to help me :)
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I can see "Agnes Taylor Greenock" three times. Greenock had important sugar refineries.
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Yes. The only one I can make out is AGNES TAYLOR in 1854/55
Official number 7458
This vessel was built in Dumbarton in 1852 by Archiebald McMillan and company yard number 46
471 Gross registered tons
Owned by John Kerr and company of Greenock
Registered in Greenock
Master in 1854/1855 Galloway
She was a regular trader to Demerara
She was condemned in 1859 after grounding on the Demerara Bar.
If anywhere her crew agreements and logbooks should be held by the British National Archives
Piece numbers BT98/3767 (1854) BT98/4159 (1855)
Be aware that many of these documents have been lost or destroyed.
No central records of seamen where kept after 1857 until effectively 1918
Addendum
One of the vessels in 1856 could be WILLIAM ACKERS official number 163
http://mightyseas.perso.sfr.fr/marhist/maryport/william_ackers.htm
Logbooks and Crew agreements 1856
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4068981
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John Kerr & Co, Shipowners. Their large fleet of Diamond K ships was largely occupied in carrying coal to, and sugar from, the West Indies, undoubtedly supplying sugar to the 14 sugar refineries working at that time in Greenock. John Kerr went on to found the Glebe refinery in Ker St in 1865 with his close business associate Abram Lyle, and James Grieve. After his death in 1872 the family involvement in sugar refining continued with the Glebe, the Brewers Sugar Company, and the Westburn Sugar Refineries Ltd.
(Source: 'The Sugar Refining Families of Great Britain' by Geoffrey Fairrie, pub. Tate & Lyle Ltd, 1951)