Seaman Merchant Sevices

[Louie13]

I was on the hunt for a John Docherty after lots of pondering and frantic searching I realised I had his D.O.B wrong. With the amended date I found this but have no clue what the numbers mean 

[Billyblue]

Which numbers do you mean?

I'd say the 490 at top LHS is a page/folio number but may be wrong.
37 is his age
the other numbers are years aren't they?

Dawn M

[Louie13]

Sorry I attached the wrong document. The new one is attached now  It's the numbers under the years I am trying to work out.

[Billyblue]

As far as I can make out, under 1847 it's ticked for Out which presumably means a voyage or maybe means he was on leave

6/52  44-?   ?left?
48-1-6   (can't make this word)
  ? June   '69

Maybe this annotation was made in 1869 which seems a long time afterwards.
Interesting he was apprenticed at age 11.  In 1869 he would have been 48. Could have been still a seafaring man then, I guess.

Hopefully Seaweed will see your post and come up with something more sensible.

Dawn M

[Louie13]

Thank you 

[seaweed]

Louie 13 contacted me via PM with another John Docherty . Hopefully this is the correct one.

The ticketing system was widely unpopular and is recorded sometimes incorrectly, in three different series 1835-1844, 1845-1854 and 1853-1856.
This record is from the second series (BT114) which is the most difficult to interpret.
For 1847 outward. The letters 9/52 could be the ships Port Rotation number. Unfortunately no "Key" exists to link the number to a ships name.
The number 44 tells us she was registered in Glasgow and John Docherty sailed from Greennock (48) on the First of June 1847.
I cannot read the comments in the "Home" column.
The only way to find out which vessel it was is to look at the Crew Agreements of Glasgow registered vessels 1847. These are stored in Kew in the series BT98.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/s/res?_aq=&_ep=glasgow&_or1=&_or2=&_or3=&_nq1=&_nq2=&_nq3=&_sd=1847&_ed=1847&_col=0&_sw=ref&_cr1=bt98&_cr2=&_cr3=&_ps=15&_ro=any&_rd=&_rsd=&_red=&_fr=&_st=adv
I am afraid this means a visit to Kew and maybe a couple of days searching. If  I am correct about the Port Rotation number, this may be recorded on the crew agreement rather than look for a name.
A search of the Greenock/Glasgow newspapers around the 1/6/1847 may help narrow things down.

[Louie13]

It was your great advice that made me look at the entire thing from a different angle. In doing so I found out that he was actually born 10 years earlier than I had previously estimated using his spouses age. Thanks again for all the helpful advise. The list of seaman goes on now. I have found out that John Doherty's father-in-law was a seaman too. My hunch is that if I find a ship name I will find all of them. That might be a bit much to hope for though. *fingers crossed*

[seaweed]

Glad to help.
Please let us know how you progress, if for nothing else, it's nice to know the advice given is correct.
SW

[Louie13]

Will do Although I might need to slow down a bit. It's not the cheapest hobby