When searching for ancestors from a port like Whitstable it soon becomes apparent that many of the men were not at home on the night of the census and so were not recorded alongside their families.

In 1881 all people on boats in port and on rivers were recorded by the Officer of Customs and are filed with the records for the town in that area. Therefore a wider search is required to track down specific people. The problem comes when you don't know who you are looking for, for instance all members of a family that is new to you. In this case you have to trawl (excuse the pun) through the UK Mariners records for local fishermen and sailors. An excellent resource for this is the mariners census site. This site has pages of listings for most ports and rivers in the UK.

To assist your search we have listed on this and linked pages all of the Whitstable born people appearing on the 1881 listings. This doesn't mean they were still living in the town at the time and doesn't include residents that were not born in the town.

Even so we have found these extracts extremely useful from a historical point of view in showing the spread of mariners from the town, highlighting spelling irregularities, and showing the names of many of the boats working out of the town. The majority of boats are found working around around the Kent coastal waters.

We have deliberately indexed the surnames in alphabetical order to make your search easier. This has thrown up the difference in spelling as these records were collated by differing Customs officials around the country who would not have been familiar with the local dialect or the correct spelling.

An important note to mention is that some of these records were collected after the census day when the boats docked after a journey. Therefore some people are known to be shown twice, once at home, and once on board, so don't be too concerned if you find your ancestor had a identically named twin, just be aware that this quirk could arise!

What can we learn about our seafaring townspeople of the time from this data?

• The majority of them were working around the Kent coast.
• Many Masters had their wife and a child on board.
• The average age of all on board boats was 28 years and 8 months.
• Large numbers were as far north as County Durham (Carrying coal?).
• Many were around Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Distribution chart of Whitstable born people on vessels around English ports , 1881 Census.