Hi Allan, I can only offer an FYI. My educated-guess is that a James CLARK / CLARKE is an ancestor. Beyond that, he is one of my concrete-block walls. He "appears" in RI / US in ~1827 and marries in a nearby MA town in 1829. He fathers a daughter there in 1836, and then "disappears" during 1840's. A fellow researcher in CT for this same, extended family found out there were "ship records" at the New Bedford (MA) Library. She found out that a James CLARK got on a ship in New Bedford as a greenhand in 1844. The ship was heading out to the Indian Ocean for a 4-yr. voyage. James "deserted" in NSW, Australia, in 1845. Nothing is known about him after that. I found out about this 4-5 yrs. ago, and I think I tried to find the record again at the New Bedford Library last year and wasn't successful. I think they had changed their web site. Betty (near Lowell, MA, USA) FYI: Someone found a record of a James CLARK being on a small ship in the St. Lawrence River in Canada in ~1825. If that was my James, he was "a travelin' man." We have no idea where he was born or where he came from when he arrived in RI. But, I have a suspicion he was from a southern New England family. James' daughter, Mary, married a man from CT and they lived there for many years. They had 3 daughters but lost 2. ~1888 they moved to MA and in 1892 they adopted a little girl. That little girl grew up to become my grandmother. To make a long story short, my educated-guess is the married daughter in CT had a pregnancy outside of her marriage in 1888, so the DEXTER couple were my grandmother's grandparents. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Bruse" <a.bruse@bigpond.com> To: <THESHIPSLIST@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 4:46 AM Subject: [TSL] Ship Deserter An ancestor (by marriage) of mine was said to have deserted his ship in South Australia. He was a Danish seaman (I assume merchant seaman) named Jacob Maag. I'm only estimating the time of the incident to be the late 19th century. Can anyone suggest how I might obtain information about the man or his ship, please? Regards, Allan Bruse