Expert’s Choice
Genealogist Simon Wills is the author of Tracing Your Seafaring Ancestors
The free Trafalgar Ancestors Database can save genealogists a lot of work: nationalarchives.gov.uk/ trafalgarancestors. It identifies more than 18,000 people who served on the British side at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805: about one-sixth of the Navy’s entire workforce. Each entry tells you the person’s name, age, place of birth, rank or role, the ship that they were serving on, and whether they survived. However, there are more extensive career histories for some individuals, listing previous ships served upon and changes in rank.
Crewmen involved in the battle range from Thomas Wilcott, aged just eight years old on HMS Neptune, to Michael Leonard, an ordinary seaman on HMS Temeraire who was 62.
Once you’ve located an ancestor in the database, you can use other TNA records to explore their careers. For example, contemporary Royal Navy musters and paybooks for your ancestor’s ship will tell you which vessel they served on next, and where they had served beforehand. You can use this information to get earlier and later musters, and so map out an ancestor’s entire career until their death or discharge. You can find a muster by typing a ship’s name into TNA’s Advanced Search facility ( discovery.nationalarchives.gov. uk/advanced-search) and restricting the search to references ADM36 or ADM37. However, you will have to visit TNA to see musters.
Besides the excitement of finding an ancestor at Trafalgar, this database also helps you locate many men whose Navy careers started in the 18th century. It’s sometimes difficult to do this without the head start that this database provides.