Thursday, April 23, 2015

U.S. Naval Enlistment Records

United States Naval Enlistment Rendezvous, 1855-1891 is a record set that gives an Irish county or town of birth for almost 4,500 Irish immigrants. "A rendezvous was the recruiting station where the men enlisted in the Navy. Officers at the rendezvous kept a record of each man enlisted and reported the information weekly to the Navy Department. These documents are known as the 'weekly returns of rendezvous reports.'"[1] These recruiting stations were located all over the U.S., for example: Mare Island and San Francisco (California); Baltimore (Maryland); Boston (Massachusetts); Saint Louis (Missouri); Portsmouth (New Hampshire); New York (New York); Erie, League Island, and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania); Newport (Rhode Island); Hampton Roads and Norfolk (Virginia).

A lot of useful genealogical information can be found in these records, including: name of naval rendezvous, name of new recruit, date and term of enlistment, rating (rank), name of ship to which assigned, previous naval service, city and state where born, age, occupation, and personal description. For example, in Saint Louis, Missouri, on 29 October 1862, Lawrence Fitzpatrick enlisted as a seaman for general service for the remainder of the Civil War. He was a 33 year old laborer, who was born in Co. Galway. He had brown eyes and hair, a light complexion, and was 5 feet 8 inches tall.[2]


Lawrence Fitzpatrick Enlistment, 1862 (Click to enlarge)

Men from Dublin and Cork make up almost half of this records set, with Donegal, Derry/Londonderry, Galway, Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford all having strong representations.

County
No. of records*
Dublin
1,125
Cork
773
Donegal
305
Derry/Londonderry
291
Galway
290
Limerick
273
Tipperary
213
Waterford
210
Kerry
90
Tyrone
86
Kilkenny
78
Sligo
73
Wexford
64
Antrim
62
Armagh
58
Roscommon
58
Mayo
54
Cavan
45
Longford
35
Monaghan
34
Down
30
Clare
28
Wicklow
24
Leitrim
23
Kildare
23
Westmeath
20
Louth
20
Fermanagh
15
Laois/Queens
14
Meath
14
Offaly/Kings
10
Carlow
9
County not specified, place is
50 (approx)
TOTAL
4,496

These records are available on a number of the main genealogy websites including Ancestry, Findmypast, and Familysearch. Familysearch has digitized and indexed the records. In total the collection contains over 262,000 records. About 46,000 are for men from Ireland, which means that just under 10% have a specific place of birth in Ireland named on their record.

*Note: numbers are very close approximates as it is difficult to count every single example.


[1] Familysearch.org. United States Naval Enlistment Rendezvous (FamilySearch Historical Records). 2015.
https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/United_States_Naval_Enlistment_Rendezvous_(FamilySearch_Historical_Records): accessed 21 April 2015.
[2] "United States Naval Enlistment Rendezvous, 1855-1891," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XG3C-M3Y: accessed 21 April 2015), Lawrence Fitzpatrick, Nov 1862; citing p. 478, volume 22, place of enlistment Saint Louis Missouri, NARA microfilm publication M1953 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 19; FHL microfilm 2,381,636.

No comments:

Post a Comment