Bremerhaven Destitute Seamen
1893-1897 & 1923-1924
This dataset indexes names of some of the seamen the Consular Agency in Bremerhaven assisted, so called “destitute seamen.” The dataset captures names from two volumes among the Agency’s records. Those volumes are:
Miscellaneous Record Book, 1878 – 1912; Vol. 91; National Archives Identifier (NAID) 1324084
The dataset indexes names from 60 letters the Agency wrote primarily to the North German Lloyd Company between 1893 and 1897 on behalf of American sailors stranded in Germany, asking the Company for assistance getting those men back to the United States. The dataset provides you with the sailor’s name, the letter’s date, and the page on which the clerk wrote the letter.
Seamen’s Register, June 1881 – August 1924; Vol. 83; NAID 1324076
Indexed names in this volume lead you to information about 500 men the Agency assisted in the early 1920s, primarily 1923-1924. The Agency’s staff entered the information in paragraph form, recording the man’s place and date of birth; sometimes his parents’ names; a physical description; identifying marks, e.g., a tattoo of a ship; his capacity on the ship, i.e., whether he was a cook, coaler, seaman, etc.; the vessel’s name; his religion, usually in the form of a denomination, e.g., Lutheran; his address in Bremerhaven; and sometimes an address in the United States. The dataset provides you with the man’s name and the page in the volume on which the clerk made the entry.
Accessing the Originals
The Bremerhaven Agency’s records are part of National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Record Group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, and they are housed at NARA’s facility in College Park MD (also known as Archives II). Neither volume is digitally available, but the dataset alerts you to whether your ancestor’s name appears in the records and provides you with enough information to locate the records at NARA. If you find your ancestor’s name in this dataset, you visit NARA’s facility in College Park, hire a researcher to do the work for you, or contact NARA’s reference staff to make a copy of the page with your ancestor’s name. NARA’s website is www.archives.gov. In addition to your ancestor’s name, be sure to note the consulate (Bremerhaven Agency), the volume’s number, the NAID, and the page number if you ask a professional researcher or NARA for assistance.
