Hi, I'm searching for information regarding the name of the ship that a William BURCH (bn 1829) was on in 1853. The only thing we have is the Port Rotation Number of 6188 - this information is taken from his seaman's record which was received from the National Archives UK. If is also reported on his record that he "Ran at Portland Bay" which is in Victoria, Australia on that last voyage in 1853. Can anybody help us find out the name of the ship? Thank you.

Hi Barbara If this was a port rotation number, then it would be 61 for the port of Lerwick and 88 for the ships rotation number. or was there a number infront of 6188 ? I think this might be his Seamans Ticket No. in which case records are at the national Archives Kew London. I found my mariner surname COTTER Ticket No.8354 under BT119 and in BT112/14 under 8354 it listed the ships with the Port Rotation. Port Rotation numbers always start with a port number followed by / and then the ships rotation number. See mariner-L website for the numbers and ports. For example in BT112 it listed No. 64/218 which is 64 = London. 218 = ship Julius for the period 1835 to 1844. You then have to go to the crew agreements for that port which are filed in large boxes in rough alphabetical order of ships name and look for the rotation number endorsed on the agreement. If you have a port rotation number for a ship with common name like Anne, etc and there are more than one in that port then to find details of the ship, go to the custom house register for that port, look at all the Anne's registered, they included endorsements of when the masters were in charge. Compare it with the name of the master on your Port Rotation numbered crew list then you will have the exact ship. Sorry not an easy task Look at the National Archive website for research documents which might tell you which BT reference you want for the period in question. Regards Bryan www.swanseamariners.org.UK

----- Original Message ----- From: "Barbara F Jones" <bjays40@gmail.com> To: <MARINERS@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 11:54 AM Subject: [MAR] Port Rotation Numbers from London > Hi, > > I'm searching for information regarding the name of the ship that a > William BURCH (bn 1829) was on in 1853. The only thing we have is the > Port Rotation Number of 6188 - this information is taken from his > seaman's record which was received from the National Archives UK. If is > also reported on his record that he "Ran at Portland Bay" which is in > Victoria, Australia on that last voyage in 1853. > > Can anybody help us find out the name of the ship? Hi Barbara There is quite a large book in many Australian libraries 'Ship arrivals to Victorian ports' from abt 1850 -1854 . This lists name of ship ,where from,date, very truncated description of its cargo , Capts name . It also lists names of the Capts in a separate index . It isn't on line You give no clue what so ever as to your location so dunno if this helps or not........... Bye MargM Beautiful NSW Central Coast Australia