Hi Ann If you check any grave yard around the coast you will find mention of drowned sailors or people lost at sea, some have mention on a stone but no body was ever found, others were found but with nothing to identify them , we have several in ours Of course, deaths were registered where they occurred, so if he died on a trip miles away he may be registered there and if there were no funds to bring the body home he may well be buried there too There is a separate GRO index for Marine deaths in the overseas indexes from 1837 but it was a largely hit and miss affair, and that is assuming there was an identifiable body found but its worth checking , if they appear in the index a death cert can be ordered in the normal way Apart from that there are the Consular returns from 1849 (again a separate GRO index in the overseas series) this would be where someone died at sea whilst sailing to a foreign Country and was reported to officials in the next port arrived at, the theory being that information would be passed back to the powers that be in the UK again it seems a hit and miss affair (more miss in my experience) If there was no identifiable body there would be no death certificate , there may have been an inquest so worth checking the newspapers In answer to your last part, if a body was not found there may have been a service for him/them but nothing may be recorded about it and as I said previously there may be a stone somewhere for him/them either at the place the event happened or at the home Parish of the parents or spouse There is also the chance your disappearing sailors simply found the grass was greener on the other side and stayed there :-) You have heard the term a girl in every port, I suspect it has some foundation in truth Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) > Good Morning everyone, > > Lovely sunny morning here in Warwickshire, but very cold and very frosty! And here I am as > usual exercising my brain about Family History. > > I have found a number of relatives who were sailors, and just disappeared in between censuses. > > Thomas Rutherford b c 1790, of South Shields, disappeared after 1829. His wife, Jane, had their > last child in September 1829, He was a shipwright. > > This is an exception because I do know what happened:- > > Elizabeth Raffle married John Wade in 1844, and I know from a tombstone that in 1844 he drowned > in the River Tyne. He too was a shipwright. > > I can't find the death of George/Thomas Ripppn, a sailor, who disappeared between 1851 and 71. > He was married to Ann Raffle. > (Ann Raffle married a second time to Robert Wilson, the widower of her sister, Elizabeth, That > took me by surprise, but as I can't find a record for this perhaps they went to Newcastle for a > day 1871 - 81 and pretended they got married) According to the affinity tables such a marriage > is legal > > And my last mystery with this this family is the disappearance of John Brown, a sailor, between > 1864 and 71. Hi wife was Margaret Raffle. > > Is there a register of men lost at sea from Tyneside shipping. If a man was lost at sea, was > there a funeral, or memorial service, or a tombstone ( as in the case of John Wade, who is > mentioned on a Raffle tomb). Or any memorial / list at all? > > Curious Ann Lavery