I am making very slow progress. Been at it for 20 years now... As a hobby. Up until the year 2000 I had no clue about the ship and the conditions under which it disappeared. I had not even seen a picture of Mary.
In 2002 I made a first try with a web page like this and got some valuable feedback:
Helpful people at Strandingsmuseet in Thorsminde, Denmark, gave info from a Swedish document called "War losses of the Swedish merchant fleet, 1914-1920".
Members of Klubb Maritim helped me with information about the ship and the shipping company.
I studied Swedish newspapers from February 1915. Wouldn't there be news about a lost ship. Certainly, there were many articles about the sea war and many ships were reported lost or damaged. But not a word about Mary. Strange. (Later I have found info about Mary in the press.)
There my efforts stranded. But, in 2011, I gave it a new try. Ten years after my first attempt, there was much more information on the web and Google was now there to help..
2011
Made a summary of the fate of the sister ships of Mary Lohden. Most of them ended in disaster. Made inquiries at different met offices regarding weather at time of the loss of Mary. Got very nice material from the British Met Office National Meteorological Archive.
Studied "Dictionary of disasters at sea" without finding info about Mary. Studied "Skånska sjöfartens histora" and found info about the shipping company.
In the newspaper Tidningen Kalmar I found the story of steamer Edda sunk by a German submarine between Seaham Harbour and Halmstad two years after Mary.
2012
A colleague at my work helped me with genealogical research about the crew and I could make contact with one descendant of first engineer on board. However, no clues regarding the accident.
Studied the submarine war in the North Sea. Very interesting, but the likelihood of Mary being torpedoed or intercepted by a U-boat became smaller the more I learned.
2012-2022
After publishing the webpage anew in 2012 I got some external feedback. I also managed to track down som descendants whom I contacted to hear if they had anything to add. This way I learned some life stories of the people on the ship. However, nothing new about the ship itself or the accident.
2022
In 2022 Google is revising "Google Sites" where the page is housed. This forces me to rework the website and I take the opportunity to add what info I have collected since last. My interest is stimulated again and I realize that the power of the web and search services have once again improved.
Within just a week of this work I have
(1) made contact with a grandson of Captain August Petersson, and
(2) tracked down the full name and birth data of crew member "F.Antonsen" from Norway who has been very anonymous until now (thanks to helpful people in the Facebook group Släktforskning), and
(3) realized that may grandfather lost his Service Book in Calcutta in 1895.
Right now I am focusing on the archives of the Swedish "Sjömanshus" institution who was issuing Seamen's Service Books and kept track of ships and seamen. Trying to nail down the whereabouts of Mary and her crew members before the accident.
Let's see were this new web page will take me. If you have anything to contribute, please contact me at mary.lohden@gmail.com.