Category Archives: New Content

Navy Records Society volumes and other new content

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: August 17, 2010
Categories: New Content

The following content was added in the last few days. We’ve added the content of indexes from nearly a dozen additional Navy Records Society volumes, as well as several other monographs covering a wide range of time periods and geographic regions.

Bateson, Charles. Gold Fleet for California: Forty-Niners from Australia and New Zealand. East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 1964.
Bromley, J. S. Corsairs and Navies, 1660-1760. London & Ronceverte, W.Va.: Hambledon Press, 1967.
Davies, David Twiston. The Daily Telegraph Book of Naval Obituaries. London: Grub Street, 2004.
Duffy, Michael. The Naval Miscellany, Vol. 6 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 146). London: Ashgate Publishing, for the Navy Records Society, 2003.
Fisher, John Arbuthnot, Baron, and Peter Kemp. The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol 102.). London: Navy Records Society, 1960.
Fisher, John Arbuthnot, Baron, and Peter Kemp. The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society, Vol 106.) . London: Navy Records Society, 1964.
Graham, Gerald Sandford, and R. A. Humphreys. The Navy and South America, 1807-1823: Correspondence of the Commanders-In-Chief on the South American Station (Navy Records Society, Vol. 104). London: Navy Records Society, 1962.
Jellicoe, John Rushworth, and A. Temple Patterson. The Jellicoe Papers: Selections From the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe of Scapa, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 108). Shortlands (Kent): Navy Records Society, 1966.
Jellicoe, John Rushworth, and A. Temple Patterson. The Jellicoe Papers: Selections From the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe of Scapa, Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 111) . Shortlands (Kent): Navy Records Society, 1968.
Lloyd, Christopher, James Lind, Sir Gilbert Blane, and Thomas Trotter. The Health of Seamen: Selections From the Works of Dr. James Lind, Sir Gilbert Blane, and Dr. Thomas Trotter (Navy Records Society, Vol. 107). London: Navy Records Society, 1965.
McConaghy, Lorraine, and Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest. Warship Under Sail: The USS Decatur in the Pacific West. Seattle, Wash.: Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, 2009.
Rose, Susan. The Naval Miscellany, Vol. 7 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 153). London: Ashgate Publishing, for the Navy Records Society, 2008.
St. Vincent, John Jervis, Viscount, and D. Bonner-Smith. Letters of Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl of St. Vincent: Whilst the First Lord of the Admiralty, 1801-1804, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 55). London: Navy Records Society, 1922.
St. Vincent, John Jervis, Viscount, and D. Bonner-Smith. Letters of Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl of St. Vincent: Whilst the First Lord of the Admiralty, 1801-1804, Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 61). London: Navy Records Society, 1927.
Sandwich, John Montagu, Earl of. The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1771-1782, Vol. 3 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 75). London: Navy Records Society, 1936.
Sondhaus, Lawrence. Naval Warfare, 1815-1914. London & New York: Routledge, 2001.

Stay tuned for several additional updates.

Eight new resources added to premium database

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: May 20, 2010
Categories: New Content

There’s lots of news to post here, and I’ll get to it as quickly as I can. First things first, though: I added content from eight new resources yesterday. Indexes from the following resources are now in the premium database:

Barrington, Samuel, D. Bonner-Smith. The Barrington Papers: Selected From the Letters and Papers of Admiral the Hon. Samuel Barrington, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 77). London: Navy Records Society, 1937.
Barrington, Samuel, D. Bonner-Smith. The Barrington Papers: Selected From the Letters and Papers of Admiral the Hon. Samuel Barrington, Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 81) . London: Navy Records Society, 1941.
Bollinger, Martin J. Stalin’s Slave Ships: Kolyma, the Gulag Fleet, and the Role of the West. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.
Fraser, Walter J. Lowcountry Hurricanes: Three Centuries of Storms at Sea and Ashore. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
Lavery, Brian. Shield of Empire: The Royal Navy and Scotland. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2007.
Shomette, Donald. Shipwrecks, Sea Raiders, and Maritime Disasters Along the Delmarva Coast. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
Silverstone, Paul H. The New Navy, 1883-1922. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Silverstone, Paul H. The Sailing Navy, 1775-1854. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2001.

The two Silverstone volumes now put indexes from all five volumes of Paul Silverstone’s “US Navy Warship series” in ShipIndex.org. As always, lots more content is always in the works.

Content, Conferences, and Enhancements

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: May 11, 2010
Categories: Conferences, New Content, Website Improvements

Oh, man. I’m so far behind in updating the world on what ShipIndex.org is up to. A few important points:

New content. I uploaded several files today. So far, they’ve included:

Torrington, George Byng, Viscount, John Byng, Brian Tunstall. The Byng Papers: Selected from the Letters and Papers of Admiral Sir George Byng, First Viscount Torrington, and of his Son, Admiral the Hon. John Byng, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 67). London: Navy Records Society, 1930.
Sandwich, John Montagu, Earl of. The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1771-1782, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 69). London: Navy Records Society, 1932.
Lenton, H T. British & Empire Warships of the Second World War. 1998: Greenhill Books, London.

The first fills a brief gap; I had already imported volumes 2 and 3, but had had a problem with volume 1, which I’ve since fixed. The last resource, H. T. Lenton’s volume, is a really big, important one. It’s got just over 23,000 citations in it. Many of these are for unnamed vessels, such as Landing Crafts, with names like “LCM.21” or “LCM.234”. I think this is important content for those doing research on these rarely-known vessels. I wrote a lot about the processing I did on this one on the resource’s information page here.

I’m very pleased to get this one imported; it adds immeasurably to the World War II content for those doing in-depth research into naval movements during the war.

With these additions, we’re now just 24 citations short of 1,325,000 citations. Perhaps I’ll find a small set to add some time today.

Past Conference. Two weeks ago (man, time flies!), we went to Salt Lake City for the National Genealogical Society conference. That was a great event, and we had a super time talking with genealogists and learning how we can improve the product we provide for them. We also had a fine time talking with folks from other companies who we can partner with, to the benefit of all involved.

There’s so much to do as a followup on that, and we’re working away on it. That’s a good problem to have, but wow, what a pile of work on our plates. On top of all of that, I’m still working on adding content, and Mike is plugging away at enhancements and new features. Both of us are also working on some neat possible partnerships, plus adding institutional subscribers here and there.

Ship Normalization. Speaking of new enhancements, Mike has built a really valuable new tool that will have a huge impact on a lot of the data that we have from a few major resources. One drawback of projects where a print resource (especially a 19th century one) is digitized and put online is that the print-specific space-saving conventions are applied to an online environment. For example, the schooner Abbot Lawrence is represented in different volumes as “Abbot L’wr’nce”, “Abbott Law’nce”, “Abbott Lawr’nce”, and (obviously) “Abbot Lawrence”. All of them mean describe the same vessel, and in a print volume, that’s easily discerned. But online, the computer doesn’t know that when you search for “Abbott Lawrence,” you’d also like to see the other variations above. That is, unless you have Mike on your side, who has created a tool so that we can bring them all together (that is, ‘normalize’ them). And that’s what we’re doing. The process is quick and accurate, though there are enough entries that it’ll take quite a while.

But, we’re doing it, and we’re making all those other entries available, despite the proliferation of apostrophes.

Next Conference. Finally, I’m headed to a conference at Mystic Seaport tomorrow – it’s a joint conference for a number of organizations, including the Council of American Maritime Museums, the North American Society for Oceanic History, the Steamship Historical Society of America, the National Maritime Historical Society, and the Society for Nautical Research. What a group!

I’m looking forward to telling folks there about ShipIndex.org, and I hope I won’t run out of brochures. If you’re going, and would like to get together at some point, please drop me a line.

New Content: Mariner’s Mirror, and NRS volumes

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: May 6, 2010
Categories: New Content

Some really great content has been added recently. First is a pile of Navy Records Society volumes, specifically:

Perrin, William G. The Naval Miscellany, Vol. 3 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 40). London: Navy Records Society, 1928.
Torrington, George Byng, Viscount, John Byng, Brian Tunstall. The Byng Papers: Selected from the Letters and Papers of Admiral Sir George Byng, First Viscount Torrington, and of his Son, Admiral the Hon. John Byng, Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 68) . London: Navy Records Society, 1932.
Torrington, George Byng, Viscount, John Byng, Brian Tunstall. The Byng Papers: Selected from the Letters and Papers of Admiral Sir George Byng, First Viscount Torrington, and of his Son, Admiral the Hon. John Byng, Vol. 3 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 70) . London: Navy Records Society, 1932.
Keyes, Roger. The Keyes Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Baron Keyes of Zeebrugge, Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society Vol. 121). London: Allen & Unwin for the Navy Records Society.
Keyes, Roger. The Keyes Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Baron Keyes of Zeebrugge, Vol. 3 (Navy Records Society Vol. 122) . London: Allen & Unwin for the Navy Records Society, 1981.

Second is ten years of the index, volumes 56 to 65, of Mariner’s Mirror. Mariner’s Mirror is the standard scholarly journal in maritime history. It’s published in Britain, by the Society for Nautical Research, and will celebrate its first centenary next year. Adding all the available indexes of Mariner’s Mirror is an important project for me, and I’m glad I was able to get this first set of files loaded. I have many more files of indexes to load, and I’ll get to them as quickly as I can.

I haven’t decided if I’ll add future indexes to this specific file, and expand its range, or have separate files for the different indexes that were published. It depends a bit on how each file works out. In this case, for instance, I expanded nearly every nationality abbreviation in the index, plus did a lot of other cleanup work. It took a long time to do. I believe it was worth it, and was the right thing to do, but it really did take a while. So, how will I balance future indexes, and will I be able to make them appear essentially the same as this data? If so, I’ll most likely just expand this one file.

Is there a better way to present this data?

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: April 1, 2010
Categories: Data Correction, New Content

I’ve been working on a big file that’s going to be very useful to ShipIndex.org subscribers, especially those interested in World War II vessels. H.T. Lenton’s tome, British and Imperial Warships of the Second World War, is an incredible resource. Its 750+ pages are absolutely jam-packed with useful content, but it has presented me with a few challenging issues about how to manage this data. I thought I’d describe some of it here, explain what my plan is, and see if the greater good has any better suggestions. There’s still time to modify how this resource is managed. I’ve probably invested at least 30 full hours in preparing this file – and that doesn’t include a significant amount of work done by another person before me – and I still have a long way to go. But that’s what it takes, sometimes, to get a resource like this one ready to add to the database.

The first part of this remarkable volume looks at larger, named vessels, organized by vessel type and class. As one example, the “Corvettes and Frigates” section is divided into entries on the “Flower” class, the “River” class, the “Kil-” class, and four more classes. (The introduction has several fascinating paragraphs about the peregrinations of naming vessels, and shows how complicated the whole process was. A fair bit of background knowledge is required just to understand this section!) After some commentary on the design and development of the class, Lenton provides tables showing brief history information for every vessel in a class. Information may be quite extensive, or it might consist of as little as an indication of the intended builder and the approximate cancellation date (for example, for vessels ordered but not begun before the war ended).

This works fine for named vessels, but creates a conundrum for unnamed vessels. In the LCM (Landing Craft Mechanised) section, for example, the index notes that “LCM.21-118” appear on pg 490; “LCM.119-220” on pg 491, “LCM.221-334” on pg 492, etc. Of the 100+ ships on each page, though, just two to three dozen have any information at all about the vessel, and that information is slight, at best. For the LCMs, most have no Building or Completion information. Of the ones that have “Fate” information, it usually reads something like “Lost cause unknown Algiers ../11/42.” (Meaning it was lost in November 1942, but the exact date and cause is not known.)

To me, this information might be useful to someone, and I don’t want to not include the entry for that vessel. But for each one like that, there are several where no information at all is included, and I believe that adding an entry to ShipIndex.org should imply that at least SOMETHING is available in the resource. So I’ve decided that what I’ll do is expand entries like “LCM.21-118” to be “LCM.21”, “LCM.22”, “LCM.23”, etc., up to “LCM.118”. Then I’ll compare my list with the book itself. If there’s any information at all about the vessel, I’ll keep the entry. If there is no information beyond its listing on the page – nothing about where it was built, or how it was lost, for instance – then I’ll delete it. My thought is that if the volume offers one piece of information, I’ll include the vessel name in the index.

Still, it’s worth noting that for people who are working on an unlisted LCM, the volume may contain information about the LCM class that might be relevant. And if you’re looking for an image of a specific auxiliary vessel, it may be that an image of a different vessel in the same class will do. It appears that the most common vessel type in which this will apply will be the LCMs, of which several thousand were built, but it will be interesting to see how it actually turns out.

Am I doing the right thing? Should I be handling this in some other way? Is there some other way that I should note the amount of information presented? I’d welcome your comments – if there’s a better way of doing it, now’s the time for me to hear about it.

Index to Nautical Research Journal added

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: March 31, 2010
Categories: New Content

This blog is slightly delayed, but it’s definitely better late than never. I added some particularly valuable content last week and haven’t yet mentioned it here on the blog. In addition to several books, I’ve added entries from the first 40 years of Nautical Research Journal, 1948 to 1995. This is particularly valuable to researchers because NRJ is written for model shipbuilders, so it provides lots of technical and specific information about individual vessels. Just a day or two after adding it, I was able to put it to great use in assisting one subscriber in looking for an illustration of a specific ship. Among just these three resources, I added over 15,500 new citations, and over 1600 completely new vessels. The specific resources just added are:

Garitee, Jerome R. The Republic’s Private Navy: The American Privateering Business as Practiced by Baltimore During the War of 1812. Middletown, Conn.: Mystic Seaport by Wesleyan University Press, 1977.
Tepper, Michael. Passengers to America: A Consolidation of Ship Passenger Lists from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978.
Nautical Research Journal (1948-1995). Bethesda, Md.: Nautical Research Guild.

As always, if you come across specific resources that you’d like to see added, please let us know, at comments (at) shipindex (dot) org.

New Content: Am Nep index, 1991-95

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: March 10, 2010
Categories: New Content
Tags: American Neptune

I just uploaded content from a five-year index to American Neptune, covering 1991 through 1995, to the premium database. Adding this sort of content is likely the most useful for the most users; it’s great to have one place where you can locate content online from numerous sources, but locating print-only content is a lot trickier.

I have a number of other journal indexes to add, and I want to get them done as quickly as I can. I’m working on it…

The ships mentioned in the 50-year index to American Neptune remain in the freely-available database; they’ll stay there permanently. Newly added content, however, will be going into the premium database.

As always, let me know of content you think should be added.

Lots of new content…

Written by: Peter McCracken
Published: February 23, 2010
Categories: New Content

I just finished uploading 5000+ additional citations today, which reminds me that it’s about time for an update on what’s been added in the past few weeks. With the most recent import, I’ve added content from three of the five books in Paul Silverstone’s “U.S. Navy Warship Series”. The series covers the history of the US Navy from 1775 to 2007, in a series of five attractive and comprehensive books, published by the Naval Institute Press and Routledge.

I’ve added Civil War Navies, 1855-1883; The Navy of World War II, 1922-1947; and The Navy of the Nuclear Age, 1947-2007. I still need to work through and add index content from The Sailing Navy, 1775-1854 and The New Navy, 1883-1922. Of the ones I’ve added so far, the WWII volume (added today) and the Nuclear Age volume each have over 5,000 entries in their indexes. The Civil War volume has many fewer, and unfortunately doesn’t include any merchant vessels in the index, which is certainly a shame.

Anyway, here’s a list of most of what I’ve added since the last listing of newly-added content, nearly a month(!) ago:

Early South Carolina Newspaper Database . Goodland, KS : ESCN Database Reports.
Mains’l Haul (1964-2008). San Diego, Calif.: Maritime Museum Association of San Diego.
Maritime Administration. Property Management & Archive Record System. : U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Maritime Administration.
Middleton, Charles, and John Knox Laughton. Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, Admiral of the Red Squadron, 1758-1813, Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 32). London: Navy Records Society, 1907.
Morris, Douglas. Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies Since 1879. Liskeard, Cornwall: Maritime Books, 1987.
Hood, Viscount Samuel, and David Hannay. Letters Written by Sir Samuel Hood (Viscount Hood) in 1781-2-3 (Navy Records Society Vol. 3). London: Navy Records Society, 1895.
Newman, Jeff. Great Ships: The Postcard and Ephemera Collection of Jeff Newman.
Pocock, Michael W. MaritimeQuest.com.
Rooke, Sir George, Oscar Browning. The Journal of Sir George Rooke, Admiral of the Fleet, 1700-1702 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 9). London: Navy Records Society, 1897.
Silverstone, Paul H. The Navy of the Nuclear Age, 1947-2007. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Silverstone, Paul H. The Navy of World War II, 1922-1947. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Silverstone, Paul H. Civil War Navies, 1855-1883. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2001.
Somerville, Sir James, Michael Simpson, and John Somerville. The Somerville Papers: Selections From the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville, G.C.B., G.B.E., D.S.O. (Navy Records Society, Vol. 134). Aldershot: Scolar, for the Navy Records Society, 1996.
Tanner, J. R., Samuel Pepys. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval Manuscripts in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge; Vol. 1 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 26). London: Navy Records Society, 1903.
Tanner, J. R., Samuel Pepys. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval Manuscripts in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge; Vol. 2 (Navy Records Society, Vol. 27) . London: Navy Records Society, 1904.

That’s a pile of stuff! Multiple Navy Records Society volumes, which are particularly valuable for those studying British naval history; the Silverstone volumes and the PMARS database for those working on US naval history; Early South Carolina Newspapers Database for those interested in Southern US colonial history; several resources for steamship buffs (especially the steamship postcards available in Newman’s online collection); Mains’l Haul for Western and general history, and some random things, as well. In the past month, it looks like I’ve added content from two journal indexes, two online resources, and a pile of books.

You can always see new content added to the database on the resources page. Any content added in the past 45 days will have a “NEW!” icon next to it. As you can see from that page, that adds up to a lot of new stuff.

In addition, I’ve reimported most (but not all) of the freely-available files, so that they’ll show the illustration icon when they’ve got one. Those files were added to the database before we had the illustration and “main entry” icons, and you can still tell that an entry has an illustration — usually when the page number is in italics — but it didn’t show the icon. By processing and reimporting those files, the icons are now appearing. I’m still working on one big file, but I’ve covered a lot of the others. That’s some of what’s going on at ShipIndex world headquarters.

As always, let me know if there’s content you’d like to see added (more NRS volumes are on the way, as are a couple of important journal indexes), or if you have any other items to share.

Newman, Jeff. Great Ships: The Postcard and Ephemera Collection of Jeff Newman.

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