Agent/Owner entries have been added or updated for more than eight thousand American Offshore Whaling voyages. Now there are agent/owner entries for more than two-thirds of the fifteen thousand voyages in the database.
This makes it possible to view the voyages credited to a single agent/owner together in search results. For example, view the voyages of the Warren, Rhode Island whaling merchants Driscoll & Child at https://whalinghistory.org/wri/AA0400.
The usual guidelines for searching names also apply here. There really were multiple people with similar names, the same person did sometimes vary the way he spelled his name during his lifetime, and firms and partnerships changed over time. But also, historical records were not always precise, clerks sometimes misspelled, and two hundred year old handwriting can be difficult to read. As a result sometimes you will find multiple, slightly different entries for what may or may not be the same merchants. To see an example, search “Driscoll & Child” and notice the variations. To make sure you find what you are looking for search thoroughly, explore variant spellings, and try the suggestions on our “Just Search” page.