Royal Navysearch

We regret that because of the large number of additions and major changes which have taken place in online sources in recent years, it has no longer been possible to keep this series fully updated. Consequently Gensearch will produce no further discs. There is, however, no objection to the copying of Royal Navysearch, provided that no charge is made for doing so.

If you have, or think you may have Naval ancestry, this Gensearch program is designed to help you. However little or however much you already know, Royal Navysearch will provide you with a choice of ways to tackle your research. If you know which branch of the service your ancestor was in, you can research the Royal Navy itself, the Royal Marines, the Fleet Air Arm, the WRNS, the Medical or Pastoral services, one of the Reserve forces, the Coastguard, or the Naval Dockyards. If you know the name of a campaign in which your ancestor took part, a battle in which he fought or a ship in which he served, you can commence your search from that point. If he was a casualty, a prisoner of war or received an honour or a medal, you can begin from there. Even if all that you know is the name of your ancestor and the approximate date when he may have been in service, Royal Navysearch enables you to start researching immediately.

Although many of the valuable records needed for research are at the National Archives, Royal Navysearch will guide you also to other repositories which hold important collections of archives and relevant publications. These are listed with full contact details, including hyperlinked email and website addresses. Hyperlinks are also provided to appropriate research aids available on the internet, and in programs purchased on disc all the web addresses and other contact details are followed by coded backup links to a series of continually updated web pages to ensure that if an address changes, the new one is immediately accessible. So if a disc-based copy of Royal Navysearch has been purchased, the addresses on it will not need updating.

Among more than fifty publications listed in the bibliography are included numerous works containing Naval records in easily searchable form. By the title of each book are hyperlinks to the details of all the major repositories which have a copy in stock. Weblinks are provided to enable the researcher to access the websites, and where they exist, to search the online catalogues of public, university and other libraries and of record offices.

In Royal Navysearch there is a one-click Chart from which you can instantly access all the other pages, together with a four-part hyperlinked Inventory of types of record, organisations, weblinks and downloadable research aids. There are links to both Chart and Inventory on all of the pages of the program.