Using methods developed by family history researchers, it is possible to discover a remarkable amount about the individual lives of many men involved in Sir John Franklin's last fatal attempt to discover a Northwest Passage. This work constitutes what might be called ‘the social history’ of Franklin studies, relevant to that voyage in particular, and the early Victorian navy in general. Light is shed upon the lives of the Royal Marines aboard both HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, men who sailed and died with Franklin.