Users Guide to SOLM-2024 database
This is the start of the Users Guide to the SOLM-2024 database
Contents
Overview of the database
- Technology: Excel Workbook
- Size: 22 MB
- Dimensions: 23,715 rows; 320 columns
- Sheets: One
- Conceptual structure: Flat semi-structured database
- Author: Colin Greenstreet
- Date started: 2017
- Latest version: SOLM-2024 Ver.13.2 08/04/2024
Conceptual structure
- Primary dimension is formed by the personal depositions of people
- Secondary dimension is formed by the named ships with which most of the personal depositions of people are associated
- Each of the primary dimensions is characterized in multiple ways, which can be grouped into sub-categores
e.g. The dimension of people has the following sub-dimensions, some of which are textual and some of which are numerical
People
PEOPLE: BASIC
-- Name [Forname; Surname] [TEXT]
-- Age [Years; Estimated birth year] [NUMBER]
-- Gender [Male/Female] [TAB]
-- Marital status [Bachelor; Spinster; Married; Widowed] [TAB; TEXT]
-- Relationships with other people [Father/Son/Daughter; Husband/Wife; Uncle/Nephew; Cousins] [TEXT]
-- Age married [NUMBER]
-- Religion [TEXT]
PEOPLE: GEOGRAPHY
-- Current residence [Street/Hamlet; Parish; Town; County/Province] [TEXT]
-- Current state [e.g. England; e,g. France] [TEXT]
PEOPLE: GEOGRAPHY ADVANCED
-- Place of birth [Parish; County; Province; State] [TEXT]
-- Length of time in current residence [NUMBER; TEXT]
-- Approximate age when moved to current residential area [YEARS]
PEOPLE: OCCUPATION
-- Main self-described occupation [TEXT]
-- Further more detailed self-described occupations [TEXT]
-- Additional work related activities described in text [TEXT]
-- Years in occupation [NUMBER]
-- Age started occupation [NUMBER]
PEOPLE: OCCUPATION: APPRENTICES AND SERVANTS
-- Apprenticeship/Servant status [TAB]
-- Age became apprentice [number]
-- Years as apprentice [NUMBER]
-- Age became servant [NUMBER]
-- Years as servant [NUMBER]
PEOPLE: OCCUPATION: MARITIME
-- Years at sea [NUMBER]
-- Approximate age first went to sea [Years] [NUMBER]
-- Approximate years at sea before made master [NUMBER]
-- Approximate years master of ships [NUMBER]
-- Approximate age first master of ships [NUMBER]
-- Months master of most recent ship [NUMBER]
-- Months in company of most recent ship [NUMBER]
-- Length of most recent voyage in which deponent present [NUMBER]
-- Number of known voyages by deponent in named ship
PEOPLE: FINANCE: WAGES
-- Wages (£) [per day] [CURRENCY]
-- Wages (£) per week [CURRENCY]
-- Wages (£) [per month] [CURRENCY]
-- Wages (£) per voyage [CURRENCY]
-- Wages (£) per year [CURRENCY]
-- Wages and/or Profits [TEXT]
PEOPLE: FINANCE: TAXES
-- Subsidy assessment (£) [CURRENCY]
-- Subsidy assessment [TEXT]
PEOPLE: FINANCE: INVESTMENT
-- Private adventures + clothes, instruments and other personal items [£] [CURRENCY]
-- Private adventures + money + clothes, instruments and other personal items [TEXT]
-- Small loans and debts between mariners and mariners and passengers [TEXT]
-- Worth (debts paid) (£) [CURRENCY]
-- Worth (debts paid) [TEXT]
Ships
SHIPS: BASIC
-- Name of ship [TEXT]
-- Place of affiliation of ship [e.g. the Seaventure of Yarmouth] [TEXT]
-- Name of master of ship [TEXT]
SHIPS: VOYAGES
-- Extent of voyage knowledge [None; Partal; Full] [TAB]
-- Voyage nodeal points [Named nodes in route order, if known] [TEXT]
SHIPS: PHYSICAL
-- Ship burthen [Tons] [NUMBER]
-- Ship ordnance [Guns] [NUMBER]
-- Ship decks [NUMBER]
-- Ship age [YEARS; TEXT]
-- Ship length [NUMBER]
-- Ship breadth [NUMBER]
-- Ship depth [NUMBER]
-- Height between decks [NUMBER]
-- Where ship built [TEXT]
-- Where ship bought [TEXT]
SHIPS: PEOPLE
-- Name of master of ship [TEXT]
-- Ship company size [including master and boys] [NUMBER]
SHIP: OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
-- Ship details [burthen; manning; ordnance]; Furniture; Apparrell; Sails; Rigging; Hull; Anchors; Value of ship; Freight rates; Demurrage; Size of ship's company; Owners of ship [TEXT]
-- Repairs to ship; Ship building; Leakiness; Pumping of ship; Weighing of ship [TEXT]
-- Ships provisions [Food; Drink; Iron work; Ropes; Sails etc.] [TEXT]
-- Passengers [TEXT]
-- Weather [hurricanes; monsoons; tempests, gale; storms; frost; ice; tropical heat; wind; fog; tide]; Severity of weather [stress; distress; extremity; (very) foul; thick; contrary; bad; wet]; Impact of weather on ship [leakage; steering errors; casting away; running ashore; driven ashore]; Seasonality [TEXT]
-- Planned and/or actual voyage details and key voyage dates [TEXT]
Legal
LEGAL: BASIC
-- Event triggering legal case in High Court of Admiralty [TEXT]
-- Short form case description [TEXT]
-- Folio mark [TEXT]
-- Date of deposition [Modernized English calendar] [TEXT]
LEGAL: ADVANCED
-- Disputes in English law courts or arbitration; Commissions; Protests; Examinations on ships; Examinations on shore [TEXT]
-- Disputes in non-English law courts or arbitration outside England; Includes Inquisition, Embargos, Sequestration, Consuls; Commissions; Foreign Notaries; Protests [TEXT]
Sorting the database
- Use of filters
- Use of sort buttons
- Use of F5 function
[THIS SECTION IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT]
Exercises
1. Using the SOLM-2024 database to analyse trade flows
- Example: Brazilian/Portuguese/Mediterranean
- Example: Hamburg/Lisbon-Cadiz/Mediterranean
- Example: English East Mediterranean
2. Using the SOLM-2024 database to compare and contrast shipping size and types in different geographies
- Question: Size and character of English East Mediterranean English shipping versus English Atlantic shipping
- Question: Size and character of English Atlantic shipping on Newfoundland versus Virginia versus Barbados routes
3. Using the SOLM-2024 database to study the roles, duties, and tasks of different occupations
- Question: How did people in specific mariner sub-occupations self-describe their office, places, tasks?
- Question: How did people evaluate the performance of others in specific mariner sub-occupations?
- Question: What can be quantified in terms of skill levels and wage levels for different mariner sub-occupations?
4. Using the SOLM-2024 database to study predation by galleys in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in the 1H C17th
- Question: Where do you find galleys and war ships geographically active in seizing commercial shipping in the 1H C17th [Turkish galleys; galleys of Argiers; galleys of Tunis; galleys of Sally; Spanish galleys; French galleys]
5. Using the SOLM-2024 database to look at the use by English mariners of international legal jurisdictions
- Question: How can we use the data within SOLM-2024 to identify legal cases in non-English legal jurisdictions invollving English commercial shipping?
- Question: How can we systematically examine the strategies used by mariners and factors to access legal systems and arbitration in non-English jurisdictions?
- Question: What was the role of Consuls and Consular assistance outside England and how did mariners interact with Consuls?
Providing feedback
- We encourage all our users to provide feedback and to make special requests to us
- The SOLM-2024 database can improve by being used as much as possible for a wide range of research tasks
