Shipping articles are records of the enlistee's terms of enlistment, and they include his signature, something not found in the main set. Some also provide physical descriptions of the enlistee, which are not in the main set either. These records are unavailable for many ships, however. Conduct books, which describe the enlistee's conduct and performance during drills, are another excellent source for genealogists. The names in conduct books may be unarranged or arranged alphabetically, by muster number, or by rating.
Some conduct books have name indexes.
The descriptive pamphlet contains a name index to the abstracts. There are also registers of officers arranged by name of ship or station. Other good sources of information about officers are the proceedings of the promotion examining boards and retirement examining boards, found among records of the Judge Advocate General's Office. Names and dates of service of naval officers are printed in List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775-1900, edited by Edward W. Callahan. For biographical records about chaplains, there are Chaplains Division records, a collection of records used to write a history of the Navy Chaplain Corps.