Wisdom Wednesday: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

The Royal Museums Greenwich include among others, the Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum (NMM). If you are interested in all things nautical, then the Maritime Museum will amaze you with its collections from both the merchant and royal navies.

The NMM Library, also known as the Caird Library has resources for family researchers. The website is www.rmg.co.uk/library. Before you decide to visit in person, you will want to read a few of its 78 research guides online. From the home page, click ‘researchers,’ then in the right hand column, double click on ‘The Library’ and pick ‘research guides’ from the dropdown menu. 

The number of topics listed is very comprehensive, for example, The Royal Navy, The Merchant Navy, HMS Titanic, Medals, and World War Two. Perhaps starting with guide A3: Tracing Family History from Maritime Records is most sensible. Guide E2 is, World War Two: The Dunkirk List. Let me quote from its first sentence:

"This guide provides an introduction to the official record of Operation Dynamo, the mass evacuation of British troops from France in 1940 during the Second World War, largely carried out by a fleet of 'Little Ships' that sailed from the south coast of England and the Thames Estuary."

Other titles include:

                  B1: The Royal Navy: Tracing People

                 B7: The Royal Navy: Ship Records

                 C1 & C2: The Merchant Navy: Tracing People

If you can visit in person, the Caird Library is open Monday- Friday 10:00 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. and Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and 2:00-4:45 p.m. Admittance is free with a reader’s card that you can order online. In fact, you can use the online catalogs and have the items you want to search waiting for you.