Family Tree Frog

M is for Malta (and Musters) Image taken from page 237 of 'John Cassell's Illustrated History of England. The text, to the Reign of Edward I., by J. F. Smith; and from that period by W. Howitt' from the British Library on Flickr My great-great-grandfather Edward Conner served in Malta - or at least I'm pretty sure he did because the eldest of his children was born there - Edward G Conner in about 1856/7. According to The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea,  (borrowed from my father's library this week during a visit to Sydney), Malta is: a strategically placed island in the central Mediterranean Sea commanding the relatively narrow channel between the southern extremity of Europe and the northern extremity of Africa...i t was the main base of the British Mediterranean Fleet.      (pp. 514-515) ADM 338/51 and ADM 338/52 have records of Baptisms 1845-1959 (Malta, dockyard) and 1924-77 (Malta (Bighi), Royal Naval Hosptial and ...

D is for Dockyards Simon Fowler,  in his book  Tracing your Naval Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians,   reminds us that:   "the Admiralty was the largest employer in Britain (in the 18th and 19th centuries) employing thousands of men at its dockyards." Some dockyards included:  Cadiz (or Mediterranean) Chatham Cork or Haulbowline Deptford Gibraltar Halifax Harwich Jamaica or Kingston Malta Minorca (or Port Mahon) Nelson's at Antigua Pembroke Penang (or Prince of Wales Island) Plymouth or Devonport Portsmouth Sheerness Woolwich York (or Lake Ontario) I've highlighted the dockyards that were Royal Naval dockyards.  The others were called outports as per this guide on the Royal Museums Greenwich site. My great-great grandfather   Edward Conner/Connor was a fitter in HM Dockyard (I am presuming Portsmouth as that is where he lived) per the register of St James hospital in 1897.  See this blog post here ...