摘要：It is shown that the maritime and river registers are detailed and objective historical source for the reconstruction of the ships’ and vessels’ biographies. There is given a source’s materials description of the register, is showed the main restrictions of the using. There is marked the basic groups of data contained, that consist on all registers. For example, two Russian registers of 1919 and of 1923 show a different level of detailing of the providing information. There is formulated four basic principles of work with the registers in solving the problem of reconstruction of ship’s and vessel’s biographies: the principle of chronological succession, the principle of reverse lookup references, the searching system principle, the principle of matching characteristics. To illustrate the possibilities of the proposed technique and formulated the principles of working with registers, the author solved the problem of finding matching purchased in 1895 in New York boats and items included in the structure of the Spanish Navy of gunboats, had been transferred to Cuba.
