Author: Damian Shiels
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Ratings Focus: “Ordinary Seamen” & “Seamen”
Our last Ratings Focus post looked at the lowest adult rank on board Civil War vessels, that of “Landsman” (you can read that here). For this installment, we are taking a look at the backgrounds, roles and responsibilities of Ordinary Seamen and Seamen, vital positions within wartime crews, and ones that indicated a sailor who…
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Bluejacket Image Focus: The Faces of Wartime U.S. Sailors at Baton Rouge
Among the many excellent naval images held by the Library of Congress is a Stereograph view (here) that depicts Union bluejackets in the act of resupplying their vessels at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It originally appeared in Volume 1 of the Photographic History of the Civil War, along with another image of a Baton Rouge coaling…
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Touring the Flagships of the Civil War U.S. Navy – In Letterheads…
Things have been a bit quiet on the Bluejackets blog of late as we were away in the Archives, seeking out historical detail to compliment the work being undertaken by our Citizen Science community over on Zooniverse. While there we uncovered lots of fantastic information that will help us add further context to what you…
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Video: Machine Learning & Your Transcriptions
Have you been wondering why we are asking our Zooniverse Citizen Scientists to draw boxes around Muster Roll transcriptions? To answer that question- and to give you an insight into the exciting machine learning software we are developing as part of Civil War Bluejackets- team member Dr Morgan Harvey explains all in our new video!
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Video: Civil War Bluejackets at The American Civil War Museum
Not long ago Bluejackets team member Professor Wayne Hsieh discussed the Civil War Bluejackets Project in a talk for the American Civil War Museum. Wayne’s talk is a great introduction to what we are doing and what we hope the results will be. It is now available on YouTube, so if you would like to…
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Bluejacket Community Discoveries: Recovering the Last, Lost Crew of USS Annie
For our latest Bluejacket Community Discoveries post, we take a look at the only muster sheet that relates to the unfortunate U.S. schooner Annie. The sheet has been worked and commented on by a number of our Civil War Bluejackets Community, including @mermex, @Beth52 and @KaiserSnowse. The reason it has drawn particular attention is its…
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Bluejacket Community Discoveries: An International Navy
A number of our previous posts have examined the international aspects of the wartime U.S. Navy, demonstrating just how cosmopolitan ships’ crews could be (e.g. see here). Recently one of our Zooniverse Community members @KaiserSnowse has been keeping an eagle-eye out for interesting nativities among the muster rolls, identifying a range of examples that serve…
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Transcription Tuesday is Here! (And So Are Some New Vessels…)
The Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine Transcription Tuesday event has arrived! We are delighted to welcome today’s transcribers to our maritime community! To mark the occasion, we have added some new vessels to those currently available for transcription. Up to know, the ship’s musters we have been working on were all related to…
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Ratings Focus: Landsmen
Our new “Ratings Focus” series takes a look at the different ratings you are encountering on the American Civil War Muster Rolls. The aim of these posts is to explain the roles and responsibilities of men who held a particular rating, and how that may have changed during the conflict. To start, we are taking…
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Join Civil War Bluejackets on Transcription Tuesday, 31 January 2023!
Every year, Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine holds a major online transcription event entitled “Transcription Tuesday.” It calls on those interested in family and social history to support a number of not-for-profit transcription projects by transcribing some of their available documents (read more about Transcription Tuesday here). This year is the seventh annual…
The Civil War Bluejackets Project 