By Diane L. Richard, NCGS Journal Editor, journaleditor@ncgenealogy.org
Planned Special NCGS Journal Edition (May 2019) on early 19th Century and earlier Mariners/Seamen/Ports
I have been pulling together some material related to attempting to trace someone’s ancestor who was purportedly a mariner sometime circa 1810-1830. 
Although we have yet to track him in the process, I have encountered some fascinating records that document the time period, two of which are merchant ledgers and customs records.
Did you have a mariner in your family in the early 1800s? Perhaps a captain, carpenter, or crew member? Did an ancestor work as a customs collector in a port? Did your ancestor ship goods or receive shipped goods while working as a merchant? Did your ancestor insure ships? Was your ancestor a Free Person of Color who worked as a cooper, a very valuable trade at the time? Or perhaps your ancestor was enslaved and worked on a ship. Basically, if you have an ancestor who was somehow involved with supporting seafaring activities in the early nineteenth century coastal Carolina region, please consider submitting a short essay about this person. Limit your essay to 500 words and do cite resources for any facts and/or assertions stated. If you have an image of a document, artifact, or something related, please include it.
You may know of a relevant resource (document type) that I have not listed above (merchant ledgers and letter books and customs records) that I should be sure to mention or include? Maybe a log or journal for a sailing vessel that regularly plied its trade in North Carolina and maybe was even owned by a North Carolinian? There are also some crew lists for North Carolinians sailing out of northern ports. Are there any NC-based sailing ship crew lists that survive?
There are very few extant records for this time period when it comes to documenting seafaring and related ancestors. The Journal will get you started on the journey of discovering records for your seafaring North Carolinian ancestors and, if you can help us do that, it would be much appreciated.
NCGS Journal Submissions Formatting
Submissions by NCGS members and those with North Carolinian ancestry are always welcome. Following these guidelines will help ensure that the submission you put a lot of time and effort into might be considered for publication in the NCGS Journal.
- Don’t embed fancy formatting. Hidden formatting is one of the greatest challenges we face when inserting content into the Journal. Do feel free, however, to use tables/excel, but don’t embed spacing or other parameters. A simple, straightforward table works just fine.
- Do document every statement of fact you make. Please use footnotes to support those statements. If your submission is more of a narrative piece that does not include factual data (hard to imagine, but a possibility), then footnotes are not needed.
- Footnotes should provide either additional detail about what you have just shared and/or source information regarding that information or fact. If the latter, please make sure that with the information you provide, everyone would be able to access the same resource. If not, add in the needed details to ensure that your sources are “findable.”
- Please include images. We strive to include an image of some type with each Journal article. Multiple images are also acceptable. If you do not provide an image, we will probably seek out something appropriate to either the topic or location or time frame.
- Please provide the information you would like to see in a footnote about you as author. Do you have an email address that readers can use? A Facebook page for genealogy? A blog or website? An official affiliation to something genealogically related?
- Please remember that the NCGS Journal is a small-footprint publication. This means that the preferable length for any one piece is no longer than about eight pages (or no more than 2,000 words, which leaves enough room for images to be included). This doesn’t mean that longer pieces will not be considered (they will be), but shorter is sweeter when trying to plan future editions of the Journal. Our continuing efforts are to ensure a quality journal experience for all readers that cuts across North Carolina through time and space and topic.
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Thanks again to all who have helped and to those who will volunteer in the future. It does take a village to create a journal. As always, I can be reached at journaleditor@ncgenealogy.org to answer your questions, and to receive your submissions and suggestions.
Go Journal Team!
You may also view a printer-friendly pdf version of the September 2018 Journal Jottings.
(Image source: “Schooner (PSF)“, by Pearson Scott Foresman licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.)