Alcove
9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites
Maritime History
Encyclopedia Titanica
Exhaustive site devoted to the ill-fated luxury liner Titanic,
with passenger and crew lists (some entries with brief biographical
information), deck plans, the full text of both British and American
inquiries into the sinking, photographs, sound recordings, and
many
other resources. The site is free but advertiser-supported; for
a fee researchers can access special features and use the site
without viewing advertisements and pop-ups.
Hamburg Passenger Lists,
1850-1934
From Ancestry.com and the Hamburg State
Archive, a searchable database (in German) of passengers on ships
departing the port of Hamburg. This resource is available free of
charge, but users must register with Ancestry.com to access the full-text
passenger lists.
Historical
Collections of the Great Lakes
Maintained by Bowling Green University Libraries. Includes searchable
databases of vessels,
ports,
and maritime
personnel. The Historical Collections of the Great Lakes
has combined its vessel data sheets
with approximately
90,000
images
of Great
Lakes vessels,
both provided online. Vessels are searchable by using one or
more fields such as vessel name, official number, place
built,
etc. Ports can be searched by location and keyword, while personnel
can be searched by name, location, and other information.
J. Porter Shaw Library (San Francisco Maritime National Historical
Park)
Library holdings include logbooks from the American
President,
Dollar Steamship, and American Mail Lines (1925-1944); the John Lyman
Collection; the Barbara Johnson Whaling Collection; vessel plans
(1878-1966) in the David W. Dickie Collection, and others. Most of
the holdings are searchable online as part of the National
Park Service Libraries combined online catalog.
Mystic
Seaport
Website for the major U.S. maritime museum and research center.
The G.W.
Blunt White Library has made available online
over a dozen
ship
and yacht registers, including the earliest editions
for
the New York Marine Register (1857), American
Lloyd’s
Register of American and Foreign Shipping (1859), Record
of American and Foreign Shipping (1871), Fox’s
Yachting Annual (1872),
and the American Yacht List (1874).
National Archives (United Kingdom)
Collections at the National Archives, UK (formerly the Public Record
Office), span 1000 years of British history. The Archives Catalogue and
the Resource
Centre and Library Catalogue are searchable online. The "Getting
Started" section
of this website includes pathfinders for finding archival information
related to the Royal
Navy, the Merchant
Navy, and the Royal
Marines.
National Maritime Museum (United
Kingdom)
The Museum's website includes digital
representations of thousands of items from the museum collections,
including manuscripts of English explorer Matthew
Flinders (1774-1814); information about the museum's collected
works of art; and catalogs
of historic photographs,
publications
and manuscripts, and prints
and drawings.
Naval Historical Center
(U.S. Department of the Navy)
The Naval Historical Center offers the only official online version
of the Dictionary
of American Naval Fighting Ships. The Dictionary is
browseable by ship name and includes information about Confederate
naval vessels. Researchers may also use the NHC
website's search
engine for keyword searches. New
information is constantly being added to their list of Frequently
Asked Questions.
New Bedford Whaling Museum
The Museum's Kendall Institute Research Library offers an overview
of American
whaling history; an introductory
bibliography on whaling; a bibliography
for educators and students; a searchable
inventory of microfilmed whaling logbooks and journals by
whaleship name, port of registry, year, master,
and
keeper; descriptions of implements
used in whaling; a searchable list of "fakeshaw" (fake
and fraudulent “scrimshaw”); and other resources.
USS Constitution Museum
Website for the museum dedicated to the world's oldest commissioned
warship, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The Frequently
Asked Questions list
provides answers to numerous inquiries about the frigate, its
dimensions,
construction, commanders, engagements, etc.
Vancouver Maritime
Museum
The Museum's official website includes a history
of the Museum, a database
of "hidden treasures" from the collections, the W.B.
and M.H. Chung Library catalog, and other features. |