lost records and strays

Maritime Archives & Library | Tracing Seafaring Ancestors in the Merchant Navy: "After 1860, the volume of these documents was so great that the National Archives felt unable to justify preserving them all, and in 1970 the crew agreements were divided between a number of repositories:"

Guide to National Archives of Ireland: "Ireland is unusual among developed countries in having few census returns pre-dating the twentieth century, the great bulk of such records having been destroyed either as a result of war or of government order."