These are the faces that stare down the decades and which form part of a nationally-important archive handed over to Southampton today.

More than one million seafarers' records, including some crew members who survived the sinking of Titanic, are now being held in the archives of the Civic Centre.

The cards contain fine details, even the descriptions of tattoos, of more than 1,250,000 mariners - men and women - who were engineers, trimmers, stokers and cooks during the last century and before, together with the names of the ships on which they served.

Southampton archives department is now expecting a huge rush of interest from all over the countr and abroad, as all the cards are now available to members of the public delving into their family history.

Formerly in the custody of the Public Records Office, which chose Southampton to house the collection because of its history as one of the nation's great ports, the central index register of seamen covers the period from 1913 to 1941.

Sue Woolgar, the city's archives manager, said: "We have been able to find photographs of surviving Titanic crew members, who went on to serve on other merchant vessels. These include Charles Light-oller, Titanic's second officer, and Frederick Fleet, who served as a lookout on the ill-fated vessel.

"Many families in the UK will have ancestors who went to sea on British merchant ships in the early decades of the last century.

She added: "The majority of these people can be found in this series of records which is an excellent resource for academics and for anyone researching their family history, so we are expecting a high level of interest.

"Details of an individual provided by these records often include the date and place of birth, physical description of their height, hair and eye colour, complexion and tattoos, and lists of ships on which they were crew.

"Particularly exciting are the series of cards covering 1918 to 1921, since these almost always include a photograph of the individual seaman.''

Among those at the launch was Frank Mortimer who was a chef on the Aquitania and sailed on the Queen Mary's maiden voyage. His uncle David Bland was a senior chef with Cunard.

Also attending was Bernard Webb son of Henry who sailed on the Majestic, Olympic and Mauritania.

Mr Mortimer said: "It is wonderful that Southampton has these records."

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.