Guide to BMD Registers

What is the BT Series?

BT158 Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages of Passengers at Sea. Covering dates 1854-1908.

BT159 Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Registers of Deaths at Sea of British Nationals. Covering dates 1875-1888

BT160 Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Registers of Births at Sea of British Nationals. Covering dates 1875-1891

Scope and content

These are registers compiled from ships' official logs of births, deaths and marriages of passengers at sea by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen (RGSS) and its predecessor.

From 1874, the RGSS was required to report births and deaths at sea, aboard all ships registered in Britain or its colonies and on foreign-registered ships carrying passengers to or from the UK, to the Registrars General of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland (the General Register Offices). The name of this series is misleading as it includes events related to persons of any nationality, not just British nationals. It should also cover events on foreign-registered passenger ships travelling to or from a UK port, but there is little evidence of this in the registers themselves.

There are separate volumes for England, Scotland and Ireland corresponding to the GRO to whom the details were to be reported. The registers for Scotland and Ireland contain details where the deceased was a ‘Scotch or Irish subject of Her Majesty’. The registers for England include all events not reported to the GROs for Scotland and Ireland and thus contain entries for foreign nationals as well as those for English and Welsh subjects.