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EDITED BY CLAIRE VAUGHAN
Can you solve the mystery of my seafaring Poate ancestor?
Q Captain James Poate (1781-1852) of the Royal Navy was my 3x great grandfather. According to the Wikisource Naval Biographical Dictionary, James entered the Navy in 1784. If this is true, he would only have been three. I’ve also been led to believe that he was aboard HMS Sirius, flagship of the first convict transportation, as the assistant ship’s carpenter – but he would only have been six years old.
Anne Thomas
A The two James Poates you identify who served with the Royal Navy are not the same person, and neither of them was a captain.
One was carpenter’s mate on HMS Sirius when it sailed to Australia in 1787–1788. The Fellowship of First Fleeters website lists the complete crew of HMS Sirius (including James) at fellowshipfirstfleeters.org.au/ship_ sirius.htm, but there are no further biographical details. I’d try contacting the site to see if they have more details about him. If they can’t help, the ship’s muster at The National Archives (TNA) in ADM 36/10978 should tell you his age on joining Sirius, the ship he served on before, and the vessel he served on next.
The second James Poate is the one whom you read about in the Naval Biographical Dictionary (NBD; en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_ Naval_Biographical_Dictionary). This is a digitised version of an account of the lives of naval officers originally published in 1849. This James Poate was an officer, but not a captain, who retired with the rank of commander in 1845. You can download his service record for free from TNA’s site via its online catalogue Discovery: discovery.nationalarchives.gov. uk/advanced-search. Type James Poate into the ‘All of these words’ text field, and limit your search to ADM 196. Unfortunately, his record does not reveal any information about his age.
However, according to the NBD: “This officer entered the Navy, 28 Dec. 1784, as Lieutenant’s Servant, on board the Pégase, sloop.” If you retrieve the muster for HMS Pégase from ADM 36/10554 and ADM 36/10555 by visiting TNA, it will hopefully tell you his age on joining the ship.
The other line you could follow is the marriage of the second James which, according to NBD, took place in 1810. Hopefully, you should be able to identify one of these men as an ancestor.
Simon Wills
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