"Call Me Ishmael"

The New Bedford Whaling Museum has a database of  crew members who sailed from New Bedford on whaling ships between 1809 and 1927. Most records seem to consist of a last name, the name and type of the vessel, and the year. The link to the museum website is here. Click "explore", then "collections", and then "crew list database"(the link is a photo on the right side of the page). While you are at the website, you should take at the look at the collection of old photographs and photographs of paintings.
A  brief article about the database from the Boston Herald can be found here.
(source: ResearchBuzz).