Online ship databases

(revised 23 October 1906)

The MIRAMAR online database of powered vessels (of 100 and more tons) is much the largest in existence. It can be searched by national official numbers and by its own unique identifiers as well as name. Insofar as the MIRAMAR identifiers are almost invariably the LR/IMO number if the ship had/has one, it can be searched by LR/IMO numbers which effectively provide “world official numbers” for all ships of significant size since the late 1960’s. (If you are not familiar with the terms “official numbers” and “LR/IMO numbers” click here and then use the back arrow to return.)

There is a growing number of other online databases that also provide major sources of information about ships, both those that are in MIRAMAR and those that are not which can be used together with each other to collective advantage. A number are documented below of those with particular value for covering particular categories of ships or a data source and which generally contain numerical identifiers that can be used to enable information about particular ships to be identified and combined more efficiently and accurately than otherwise possible. Reference is made to work in progress on projects that will extend the range and potential connectivity of indexes and databases that can be searched by or linked to using internationally recognised numerical identifiers

Several information sources that can be accessed from a single portal on the “Mariners List” website are listed first followed by historical databases grouped by country and a selection of databases relating to currently registered ships.

The Mariners List portal

The Mariners List provides a portal to several ship databases from http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/Shipping.html

These are listed below. Benchmarking this link is a convenient way to link directly to several major databases. It also provides a direct link to MIRAMAR.

The focus is on merchant vessels. Of those listed, only MIRAMAR and GSN include naval vessels.

Canadian Heritage ships’ database

A long-established, fully searchable database which covers most ships registered in Canada from the early 19^th century until well into the 20^th century. The territories that became Canada formed one of the largest ship building and ship owning countries for much of the 19^th century (sometimes claimed as fourth largest in the world). It is searchable by official number. This database has the particular advantage of taking you right back into the original registration records with the specifics of where to get the complete details in archives. It has its own system of surrogate official numbers for ships which never had an official number or for which no record of the official number is indicated on Canadian port registration records (as is often the case with Canadian ships sold to UK owners before 1855).

This database is one of the largest online historical ship databases after MIRAMAR. It should include all ships included on the Ships and Seafarers of Atlantic Canada CD-ROM (which identifies around 20,000 ships by official number; refer http://www.mun.ca/mha/publications.php ) together with additional ports of Atlantic Canada, all of Quebec, the Great Lakes and British Columbia and ships that did not survive long enough to be allocated an official number or were later allocated an official number elsewhere. Conceivably, it includes 40,000 distinct ships and possibly more.

From the Mariners List portal and http://daryl.chin.gc.ca:8000/basisbwdocs/sid/e_main.html

American shipping insurers’ registers

Scanned images from registers covering roughly the last 40 years of the 19^th century. [NB: “American Lloyd’s” is nothing to do with British Lloyd’s.] The earlier ones at least include many non-American ships and ships that are not covered in the familiar Lloyd’s Register series [LR did not become comprehensive until 1890].

Searchable by name and other characteristics but not by official number.

From the Mariners List portal and http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/initiative/ShipRegisterList.cfm

British official numbers index up to ON: 100,000

From the research of Gareth Butler and Ian Buxton which I am double-checking, revising and extending. Incomplete but substantial. A complete index of British official numbers would effectively amount to an index of all British ships [Empire-wide] of 15 tons and above registered from 1855 onward, including up to 30,000 or so ships built before 1855 (compared to about 66,000 built in the UK in the 1800-1854 period). Most ships in this index are not in MIRAMAR (because they are not powered or too small). The total number of ships ever allocated a British official number certainly exceeds 300,000 and possibly exceeds 400,000.

Assistance (to me) with transcribing from the 1873 Mercantile Navy List will help to advance this revision project as would access to any transcription of UK and/or any Commonwealth country ship registration records which include official numbers as well as port registrations especially those covering the period up to 1873.

From the Mariners List portal and http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/IBON-INDEX.html

British official numbers index ON: 100,000 and above

Ted Finch’s index which actually starts well below ON: 100,000. Nearly all of its ships are now available more fully in MIRAMAR but it is still useful for some checking purposes. It contains the US official numbers of British ships that had both British and American official numbers so is a first step towards a US/British translation file.

I am also double-checking, revising and extending the substance of this index to develop an alternative that will have more data columns and many ships that are not in MIRAMAR [particularly deep-sea Sail]. Any transcription of any UK and/or any Commonwealth country ship registration records which include official numbers will help to advance my revision project. Even if they only duplicate what is already available they will be useful for double-checking which is essential as a small percentage of typographic errors is endemic in widely used secondary sources, occasionally even in original sources and in every transcription project I have yet encountered as it only requires one or two slips of a finger or a monetary lapse of attention in 20,000 or so key depressions for half of one percent of transcribed records to include some wrong letter or number.

From the Mariners List portal and http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/ON1.htm

The Global Ship Number Project [GSN]

A system for standard numbering of world ships for database management purposes – in effect to retrofit substitutes for LR/IMO numbers to ships that never had them. See background paper as well as the GSN website (below) for a discussion of database issues.

The online demonstration database currently covers only British ships (naval as well as merchant) of 6,000 tons and above. Searchable by official number and LR/IMO number and of course by its own Global Ship Numbers (GSN’s).

From the Mariners List portal and http://gsn.ncl.ac.uk/

Lloyd’s Register 1930-1945

Scanned images of pages of the standard Lloyd’s Register that include official numbers with a searchable index (but not searchable by official number). A convenient source of additional information for ships afloat in this period that you find in other databases.

From the Mariners List portal and http://www.plimsollshipdata.org/

Other major databases

Canadian Great Lakes’ ships

The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston, Ontario, has a long established fully searchable database of Canadian Great Lakes’ ships at http://db.library.queensu.ca/marmus/registry/index.html If your software settings inhibit accessing the advanced search tool (as mine often do for no reason that I can unravel) official numbers can be entered as a keyword in a basic search (though low ones in particular might be confused with a tonnage or other number so you may have to pick among the results).

The parent site also has links to other Great Lakes’ shipping resources including the Mills’ List of Canadian steamships at http://db.library.queensu.ca/marmus/ and also to the MarHst Index email network, arguably the most important internet-based English-language maritime history information exchange. The site is currently under reconstruction and as of 14 October 2006 the “Home” link takes you back to a domain (www.marmus.ca) that is for sale. It should lead you to http://www.marmuseum.ca/ from where you can pick up a range of links from the Research menu.

American databases

The only major American online database I know that can be searched by (US) official number is the Wisconsin Maritime Historical Society database of nearly 50,000 American Great Lakes’ vessels at http://www.ship-wreck.com/shipwreck/wmhs/ This can also be searched on several other characteristics.

I am negotiating with American researchers to pool their resources with mine to provide a US official number index along similar lines to the British ones on Mariners List to cover US ships, sail and steam, from 1867 onward to provide a first stage of an American ships’ index.

Australian

Sydney square-riggers are documented at http://home.iprimus.com.au/mflapan/SydneySquariggers.htm This includes their official numbers. It is not searchable but contains only a few dozen entries.

I am compiling a master index to (not pirating) the publications of Ronald Parsons which comprehensively document Australian ships up to 1875 as well as some later ships and Australian and New Zealand shipwrecks with a view to the result being able to be combined with my NZ indexes into an Australasian index linked to the all-British index/es. Many of these Australian ships were also involved with NZ so these are important as an NZ source as well as an Australian one. Australians working on overlapping indexing or transcription projects are particularly invited to contact me especially from the AMHS. An annotated bibliography of Parsons’ publications is in draft for addition to this website.

New Zealand

The NZ Maritime Index from NZ National Maritime Museum provides links to many records of ships, NZ and overseas, including Auckland ship arrivals since 1925. Partially searchable by official number and LR/IMO number (option available but not all ships are identified by these numbers). http://www.nzmaritimeindex.org.nz/ixsearchvessels.asp

I am working on a master index of all ships ever registered in or wrecked in NZ (including those in “Watt’s Index”) plus listings in some NZ books and other resources to be in a format designed to be potentially interlinkable with all the above databases whose setup permits it and to provide a link to a staged revision of “Watt’s Index” itself. The second stage will progressively include ships that simply visited NZ starting with the immigrant ships of the 19^th century and later immigrant ships of special interest to genealogists in a format designed to interconnect with genealogists’ detailed transcriptions of shipping, passenger and crew movements which ordinarily contain less ship information. Contact me for details or if you can assist with transcription or checking.

Smaller British databases

To be expanded. Nominations of other databases including official numbers or other numerical (or alphanumeric) identifiers are invited. It would be good if the various databases that include fishing vessel port codes of the GY 156 type were able to evolve in such a way that they could be linked to cover UK fishing vessels comprehensively. This would not only enable the fishing vessels to be studied as a class but also provide the means to explore the proportions that fishing vessels form of total UK registrations in various size categories in various periods.

North-west England sailing ships

http://www.mightyseas.co.uk/index.html

Official numbers can be entered as search keywords; for example, 96349 will bring up the history of the Alice A. Leigh which began its life at Whitehaven in 1889 and ended its days as a breakwater on a small rocky island just north of Auckland, NZ.

Milford trawlers

http://www.milfordtrawlers.org.uk/

In alphabetical order. Includes official numbers and port numbers but not directly searchable by them.

Cardiff ships

http://www.glamorganfamilyhistory.co.uk/maritime/SHIPIND.html

includes more than 2,000 ships with various types of Cardiff connection that can be searched by official number.

Modern ship databases

(To be expanded. Additions invited.)

Current Australian ship registrations

http://www.amsa.gov.au/Shipping_Registration/List_of_Registered_Ships/

In alphabetical order of name with official number but not LR/IMO.

Current Hong Kong registrations

http://www.mardep.gov.hk/en/pub_services/shipname.html

Port of Wellington (NZ) shipping movements

http://www.centreportoperations.co.nz/webenq.php?query=ShippingMovements

Identifies ships by Lloyd’s (LR/IMO) number.

Database linking issues

I am working on a discussion paper addressing options and issues involved in how to make more effective use of databases without compromising their owner’s rights and independence. For a draft click here.

To contact me email jloweresearch@ihug.co.nz

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