Next of kin details for 400+ Merchant Navy - found

[Guest Pete Wood]

I was recently going through some files at the PRO and came across an interesting clerical error which had resulted in the Mercantile Records Office filling out the details of hundreds of casualties of WW1 on the wrong form. But instead of throwing out this mistaken casualty list, it was (for some unknown reason) retained.

I didn't have much time to look through them in detail, but it seemed to me (at the time) that the next of kind details for all these casualties might prove to be quite valuable info to someone. I took a quick snap, and some of these names are shown below. I can't show all of the names on this first sheet, without permission of the National Archives. Sorry.

I also think that, as this is a list of names sent to the Plaque Factory, and it APPEARS to have been in a mistaken format (which was not repeated), that this was an early (if not the first) list sent by the Mercantile Marine offices.

Can anyone confirm that Joseph Allen was the first, alphabetcially speaking, Mercantile casualty....??

I am happy to provide a reference at the PRO for anyone who wants to know where the files are. Any takers....??

[Terry Denham]

RT

I am away from home at the moment and so cannot check the Mercantile Marine casualty list but I doubt very much that ALLEN would be the first name on an alpha list - ABBOTT or even AARON would stand a better chance.

This sheet looks as though it came from the middle of the 'As'.

However, there will certainly be more ANDERSONs than on this list and so it looks like a sub-list - possibly from one ship, on one date, one port, one company etc.

I'll have a go at trying to connect the names tomorrow.

[Terry Denham]

A quick check of the CWGC site rules out same date, same ship, same port of registry.

And there are 58 ANDERSONs in the WW1 Mercantile Marine casualty list