During the second half of the 19th century the private shipping business in Habsburg Empire (Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy after 1867) went through different stages that encompass a period of extra growth and profit (first three decades) and gradual decrease of business (last two decades). In order to track this process the main source available is Annuario Marittimo the annual publication of the Governo Maritimo in Trieste. This publication brought the complete listings of sailing and steam ships in the Monarchy with different data pertaining to vessels. However, the most valuable are the distribution of sailing ship owners according to each vessel using the carati system. This presented an opportunity to create a model for tracking owners and to consider different cases of ownership alteration. The model takes a ship as an entity that changes owners through the period of her existence and therefore provides an insight in the ownership enterprise from the construction, the possible sale, inheritance and the end of the ship. This provides the image of the economic position of owners and their ascent and descent from the shipping business. Finally, the steam ship data show who of the sailing ship owners entered into steam business. Other available documents give us the broader context of presented situation intended for the comparative analysis.
