National Library of Wales Shipping Records

The National Library of Wales have made available transcriptions of shipping records from 1856 to 1914, which were transcribed by volunteers at the National Library.

I have attempted to visualise this data to show the locations these ships and sailors travelled and the relations between each sailor and ship.

Shipping Paths

The following videos visualise the journey of each ship in the data set.

Shipping Records Visualisation Europe 1844–1914

Shipping Records Visualisation United Kingdom 1844–1914

Shipping Records Visualisation World 1844–1914

Graphs

Once the data had been extracted from the spreadsheets and ingested into a database, relationships were made between the different entities, which allowed for analysis of the data. The relationships in the database were then used to generate a graph.

Below are example graph relationships for a single person, Henry Evans, and a single ship, Edith Eleanor.

Each graph is limited to two degrees of separation.

Graph key: purple represents people, orange places and green ships — Graph Key

Henry Evans

Henry Evans born ~1847 in Aberystwyth, served as bosun, mate, able seaman, boy, ordinary seaman, cook & steward on the following vessels adroit, golden arrow, maid of meirion, wellington, agenoria, glynaeron, glynaeron, jane morgans, eleanor, margaret jane, battus.

Network edges connecting Henry Evans to people, places and ships — Graph Edges for Henry Evans — two degrees of separation

Edith Eleanor (85261)

Topsail schooner built in Aberystwyth in 1881

The Edith Eleanor was a topsail schooner built by James Warrel (of Warrell and Co.) for Mr (later Sir) D C Roberts (timber merchant) and Richard James (tanner of Aberystwyth). She was named after Mr James’s daughter.

She was the last ship to be built on Y Ro Fawr, Aberystwyth and was built to relieve unemployment.

The Edith Eleanor was the last of about 280 large wooden boats to be built in Aberystwyth during the 19th century.

Network nodes connected to the Edith Eleanor within two degrees of separation — Graph Nodes for Edith Eleanor — two degrees of separation

Network edges connecting the Edith Eleanor to people, places and ships — Graph Edges for Edith Eleanor — two degrees of separation

Sailors Birth Place

The heatmap below shows the birth place of each sailor.

Heat map of the United Kingdom showing where sailors were born — Location where each sailor was born

Average Age

Average age for each sailor joining a ship between 1844 and 1914.