Kim: Excuse my grammar; I am Dutch and therefore not an expert on your language. But I am part of a Dutch group that sings shanty's and seasongs and therefore I know a little bit about it. Maybe you should tell us which shanty's you are planning to use, and what your presentation is about. That would make it easy to give comments and to help you. There might be a mixup on the centuries in this discussion: The 19th century is from 1800 untill 1900. The 18th century was from 1700 till 1800. Shanty's are worksongs from the sailingships. There are a few very old ones, but most shantys are indeed from the period 1850-1910. The problem is that age is hard to determine because words have changed over the times and there is no 'original' version. Every shantyman sang it different and adapted it as nessecary. And there are also a lot of songs of later origin which have never been sung at sailingships at all. So if you gave us a bit more information we might be able to help you.