Such records are most often kept at the individual lodge level, and may be lost due to fire, flood, deterioration, or simple carelessness.
In areas of the world where Masonry has been suppressed by governments, records of entire grand lodges have been destroyed.
Standards of "proof" for those on this list may vary widely; some figures with no verified lodge affiliation are claimed as Masons if reliable sources give anecdotal evidence suggesting they were familiar with the "secret" signs and passes, but other figures are rejected over technical questions of regularity in the lodge that initiated them.
V. Nelson of the Nile, and of Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, who lost his life in the army of Victory, in an engagement with ye Combin'd Fleets of France and Spain, off Cape Trafalgar, 21 October 1805.
At the Masonic Hall, Reading, may be seen a framed print with a representation of a banner carried at Lord Nelson's funeral.