Genealogy Chat

Hello. I need some advice on how to look for records about someone who was born at sea. The information I have to go on is documented on his daughter's birth certificate.

Here goes:

On Emma Whelan's New South Wales, Australia, birth certificate it reads for father: Thomas Whelan, born at sea near Canada, 1848.

Argh! How on earth do I figure this out?

The mother is listed as Elizabeth Connolly, born Longford, Ireland, 1864. I assume Thomas' birth records are either in Ireland, Australia or Canada, but I have not found them anywhere.

Any help with this or ideas on researching this would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you,

Jennifer Le Pine

Hi Jennifer,

I found to Whelan births at sea on Find My Past but they are not yours.

Leave you post up, I am pretty sure that someone will know where else to look.


You could have a look here....................

Births, Marriages and Deaths At Sea
The Family Records Centre (FRC) holds indexes to records of births and deaths at sea from 1837. These 'Marine Registers' can be found in Section C on the First Floor of the FRC. See the General Register Office website for a full list of their holdings.


Linda

Linda,
Thank you! That is a good start, gives me somewhere to look. Where are the records kept? Is that in Australia? I appreciate your having a look for me, I wouldn't even have known where to start.
Yes, good idea, I'll keep this post up.
Thank you again!!
Jennifer

Here is what I found, for anyone else looking for at-sea birth records:
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/order_certificates/Search_for_overseas_records/Order_and_buy_certificates.asp
That link goes to the page with the details and here is the home page:
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/order_certificates/Search_for_overseas_records/index.asp
Good luck to anyone else researching this!
Jennifer

Sorry!! I didn't realize that I could not post the address of a website, which is what I did above. I haven't read the rules in a long while. I understand if the post is removed or corrected. sorry!!
J.

Hi Jennifer,

Website address: yes, you can post these. It's just that if it is a long address, the window widens to accommodate it and the text may then scroll off the RHS of the screen.

I can read the thread if I reduce the text size that I'm using. If you reduce the text size, you should be able to see the "edit" option on the RHS of the box, which means you can edit the website address. If you go to www.tinyurl.com, there is a box there where you can copy and paste a long website address and have it converted to a short one. The short one is quite neat for pasting the ref into your thread so that others can visit the website.

Births at sea - countries that register births are registering events that occur in their area, regardless of nationality. The UK offers the opportunity for British subjects to register an overseas birth - these are kept in separate lists, with those occurring at sea in another list again. These are the refs given above. I'm not sure whether any other countries offer the same facility.

The parents might have chosen to baptise the baby - perhaps check churches in likely ports?