Vanda Richard has answered your query about the geographical description of West Indies/Caribbean. I'll try and help you with your merchant ships - there are two answers depending on whether they were passengers or ships' crew. If they were passengers The National Archives (Public Record Office) has passenger lists of most ship's leaving British ports to places outside of Europe and Mediterranean, for the period 1890 to 1960 (series reference BT 27). I say most because although masters were supposed to lodge passenger lists with customs officials I feel that this did not always happen as I have not always been successful finding ships - even when I have the name of ship, date and port. The down side is that these are arranged by port of departure, month/year and then by ship - they are not indexed. Inwards passenger lists may survive in the country of arrival either in the archives or may be still with the immigration or customs departments. Many people who ended up in the West Indies did not go directly there - ships were not so frequent and were often expensive so a cheaper option was to go tourist class to Canada or USA and then to the West Indies. If Walter travelled between 1896 and 1924 you could try Ellis Island database in case he travelled via the port of New York/Ellis Island at www.ellisislandrecords.org. If either of them were merchant seamen working on ships trading between the UK and the West Indies, again, there could be information at The National Archives. They have produced several leaflets which describe sources in more depth than I could at http://www.pro.gov.uk/leaflets/Riindex.asp. There are records of service for merchant seamen between 1918 and 1972 (unfortunately, two series for the period 1918-1941 are arranged by discharge number). There are also agreements and crewlists to 1970 (but The National Archives only has a ten percent sample for years after 1861 except for 1939-1952 (or thereabouts) - most of the rest are in Newfoundland - these are arranged by ship's official number so you would need to know the name of at least one ship. Happy hunting Guy Grannum ----- Original Message ----- From: <WshireSD@aol.com> To: <CARIBBEAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2003 8:44 PM Subject: Ships to the West Indies > OK - I am going to ask a stupid question - but would like a sensible answer. > > Are there any records of people who were on merchant ships from England to > the West Indies. Does the West Indies mean the same as the Caribbean??? (Sorry - > that must sound incredibly stupid) > > I am looking for Walter BEBBINGTON born in England in 1882 > > and George BEBBINGTON born in Bristol, 1946. > > Thanks > VANDA > > > ==== CARIBBEAN Mailing List ==== > ROOTSWEB MAILING LIST HELP PAGES > What is a Mailing List? > http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help/mail1.html > >