Righteo I could do with some help/advice at the moment.
I've been trying to get as much info on my Gt grandad (John Mitchell). From other family members it seems that my Gt grandad jumped ship in Australia or New Zealand. I have a copy of the 1911 census of him living at home with my gt grandmother with 3 children one of them being my grandad. His wife Mary Mitchell (nee Raney) died in 1915. I've heard out he may have married again a year or two later but that's not really the problem. It's John Mitchell's dissappearance after 1923 that nobody knows about. I sent off for his medal card as he was in the Merchant Navy, and then that lead me onto writing to Southampton archives to get his Merchant Navy documents. The documents I have included show his actual DOB, 2 official ship No.s and one actual name of a ship he was last engaged to (april 1923). No other records could be found in the archives on him. My grandad said he went to live in either Australia or New Zealand probably by jumping ship. I have found other Mitchell family members by doing this family research and they had plenty of photos of the family all minus John Mitchell who they said he may have jumped ship in Australia...:/
The date stamped for his last ship is April 1923 but I'm not sure if that was the start of his engagement on the ship he actually jumped from? I looked up the name of the ship in the archives on-line and the Ascanius did come from Australia in 1923, but there seems to be no documentation on him jumping ship which I thought would be recorded. I'm stuck now and could do with some help from an expert
Here I provide the docs I got from ancestry (medal cards which report his address as 10 Westley St B-head in 1922) and the docs I paid £15 for from Southampton Archives, one good thing though is we got our first photo of him as Merchant Sailors had passport photos from the end of the 1st world war. I can understand some of the handwriting his rank looking like First mate, but there is some other writing I cant make out. If anyone knows where to go from here I'd love to know, he cant have dissapeared from the face of the earth, even if he did go to Australia or New Zealand his death record will be there and maybe other documentaion to say whether he may have had other children when he did jump ship...
Ah well that's the essay over have a look at the docs and see if you have any advice I'd really appreciate any feedback.









The medal card is in a .doc and pdf format on my laptop so I cant upload it

this address might help THE REGISTRY OF SHIPPING AND SEAMEN,
ANCHOR HOUSE,CHEVIOT CLOSE
PARC TY GLAS,LLANISHEN
CARDIFF CF4 5JA
TEL.NO. 012227473
this one as well THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
RUSKIN AVENUE
KEW, RICHMOND, SURREY
TW94DU
NO PHONE NO.SORRY.this address holds passenger lists of vessels travelling to and from british ports including l.pool from 1890's onwards.hope this is some help

First document looks like 'fireman and trimmer', meaning hard work in the boiler room, coaling the boilers and adjusting the coal.
The third document reads 'f man', confirming the above.
Bri

Here's a description of the job of trimmer:

Thanks for your help people will have to some further research to see where the bugger went to