RN Family History Research
By Barrie Downer
1. For those who are interested in researching Family History where one of your or your wife's, partner's, girlfriend's relatives is known to (or is thought to) have served in the Royal Navy (possibly in Submarines) here are a few pointers on how to find out when and in which ships or submarines your relative served.
2. Firstly, it helps if you know a Christian Name(s) or Initials and, of course, the Surname, Date of Birth (DOB), Place of Birth (POB) of your relative, his Official Number and Year joined. It also helps to know whether he was an Officer or a Rating. The Date of Birth or Year of Birth is important. The National Archives records for Naval Ratings are divided into distinct groups.
PART 1 - CONTINUOUS & SHORT SERVICE RATINGS JOINING BETWEEN 1853 & 1923
3. Type National Archives into your Search Engine and press Enter.
4. When the options are displayed look for and select the Discovery option and press Enter.
5. When the Discovery page comes up look for the Royal Navy Service Records icon on the left-hand side of the page under Popular Collections - select and press Enter.
6. This will bring up the Royal Navy Ratings Service Records 1853-1928 page.
7. Now scroll down the page to where you asked to enter First Names, Last Name, Service Number (if known), Place of Birth (if known) and a Date Range. Fill in the boxes press Enter.
8. If he was a Continuous Service Rating (twelve years' service from the age of eighteen) or Short Service Rating (seven years' service from the age of eighteen plus five years in the reserve) and some or all of the data you have entered is correct then a Name and Official Number and Date of Birth should come up (or possibly) a list of names should be displayed. If you see the details you are looking for you can click on the Name you need to go to the next page to download the record which will be in a PDF format but remember you will need to buy the information - £3.50 per record! Full instructions are provided.
NOTE. You may see two or more records for the same Name, Official Numberand Date of Birth. If so, check the Referenceassociated with the Records. ADM/188 records cover Service up to 1st January 1929 and ADM/363 records cover service after 1st January 1929 and may include WWII Service. You will need to download both Service Records.
9. If the expected Service Records' do not appear try varying the spelling of the First Name or Last Name to something which sounds similar or widen the Date Range or delete the Official Numberin case your information is suspect.
10. If you buy a Service Record you will be able to download to your computer screen and/or save it straightaway - however you will also be sent an e-Mail which will tell you what you have bought and how long you have in which to download it.
INTERPRETING YOUR RECORDS
11. Early Official Numbers consisted of up to six numbers i.e. 123456 or 272272 or 303303.
12. Later Official Numbers had a Prefix of a single letter followed by up to six numbers i.e. J12345, K6789, M1234 or L4567
- J indicates that he was a Seaman or a Comms Rating
- K means he was a Stoker
- M usually means he was most likely an Engine Room Artificer or an Electrical Artificer or possible a Sick Berth Rating (however in some cases he may have been a Cook or a Steward).
- L means, generally, he was a Cook or a Steward.
- SS indicates he was a Short Service Rating.
To help to work out the specialisation of your relative a breakdown of Service Number Ranges may assist: The following Service Numbers were issued for Serving Ratings from 1st January 1873.
- Range 1 to 178000 Miscellaneous (including Seamen, Stokers, Artificers, Cooks, Stewards etc.)
- Range 178001 to 240500 Seamen and Comms
- Range 268001 to 273000 Engine Room Artificers
- Range 276001 to 348000 Stokers
- Range J1 to J110000 Seaman & Comms
- Range M1 to M63500 Miscellaneous (including Artificers, Cooks, Stewards, Writers etc.)
- Range K1 to K63500 Stokers
13. Sometimes you will find the same Name, Place of Birth and Date of Birth with two different Official Numbers. These are usually where someone joined as a Seaman and later re-categorised as a Stoker (or vice versa) or where someone joined as a Short Service SS Rating and then signed on for continuous service (CS) and then was given a new Official Number with the J, K, L or M prefix.
14. The Service Record will show you information like Portsmouth (Po), Chatham (Ch) or Devonport (Dev) Depots, when he joined and where he joined, height, weight and chest size with details of hair colour, eye colour and complexion and detail s of scars and tattoos. The latter were very important for being able to identify casualties in the days before photographs. Ships and Submarines served in with dates are shown as are Advancement Dates and his Sub Ratings (or Specialisation) and Dates of Qualifying. Unfortunately, there are no photographs attached to these records.
15. If you think (or know) that your relative was a Submariner please note that early Submariners are not easy to identify as, before 1914, details of Submarines served in were not annotated. However, if you see listed the Submarine Depot Ships such as Hazard, Latona, Mercury , Thames, Bonaventure , Forth, Onyx, Dolphin , Vulcan, Pactolus, Rosario , Egmont, Cormorant, Arrogant , Maidstone and Adamant (or a consecutive group of these) between August 1901 and July 1914 you may be on the right track. If he served for approximately five years in a selection of these ships he is likely to have been a Submariner. If there is then a break of at least two years before he served in any more of these Ships, then it is more or less confirmed that he was a Submariner. The early rules were that no more than five years Submarine Service was allowed before a compulsory return to General Service for a minimum of two years before returning to Submarines. After July 1914 (i.e. after the outbreak of WWI) things changed quite a lot with new many more Depot Ships - Titania, Lucia, Pandora , Ambrose, Platypus, Fearless , Royal Arthur, Crescent etc. and the five and two year rule was relaxed
16. Be aware that you may find out a lot more than you wanted to know as the Service Record is also a Conduct Record and you may find that he was punished by Warrant and sent to Prison, Cells or was Disrated and sometimes why! In some cases, you may find out that he had contracted a 'Social Disease'as medical issues were often recorded. The Record may also be annotated 'Run' (Deserted), SNLR (Services no Longer Required) or 'DD' (Discharge Dead) with date and sometimes the reason. The annotation 'DEE' indicates 'Discharged, Engagement Expired'.
17. In many cases Ratings leaving Naval Service after 12 or 22 years' service joined the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR) and would be given another Official Number similar to RFR. Po/B/12345 which indicated that they could be recalled for further service in case of Emergency.
Comments
Comment by: Barrie Downer on August 24, 2018
The function of a Submarine Spare Crew was to provide a pool of officers and men fully qualified on a particular class of submarines. Should an operational Submarine be short of a full crew on sailing - say a key crew member had gone sick or was otherwise able to go to sea - then an appropriately qualified member of the spare crew would be detailed off in his place. This ensured that the submarine was fully capable of meeting its commitments. As previously mentioned the original Spare Crew requirement was for one complete Spare Crew for every three submarines of a flotilla.
When the Submarine returned to harbour the 'Spare Crew member would return to the Spare Crew whilst the man he had relieved would re-join the crew.
During periods when the submarine was alongside in maintenance or repair the Spare Crew were available to assist the Submarines Crew in the maintenance tasks and to allow some of the crew to take leave etc.
Comment by: Graham Woolgar on August 1, 2018
It would be helpful if this page explained what being spare crew entailed. e.g. serving for short periods on different subs or whatever, and whether if spare crew appears on a service record, more detail might appear on the submariner record card.
This form is for you to comment on, or add additional information to this page. Any questions will be deleted. If you wish to ask a question contact the Branch or the Webmaster using the Contact Us page or ask your question on our Facebook Page