The abstracts, of course, are one step removed from the original and do not contain all the information on the applications, which apparently were destroyed, but they are useful genealogical sources. Some random records exist for about fifty other ports, primarily abstracts, registers, and a few applications. The applications filed in Philadelphia show a wide range of ages and birthplaces. While most seamen applied for a certificate when they were in their twenties, boys in their teens and men in their thirties often applied. Boys as young as eleven and men as old as seventy-seven are on record.
Geographic distribution is equally broad.
The Atlantic seaboard states are well represented, most seamen coming from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware. Some gave Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida as their place of birth. A few came from the District of Columbia and as far away as Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, and Louisiana. A good number were foreign born. From a genealogical perspective, the witnesses are perhaps the most significant information after age and place of birth.