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