Traced John back to 1915!

As far as the crew lists go I know my grandfather left a ship called the Annie on the 13th of October 1913. The records are not in Canada or Kew so I will need to visit the British Maritime Museum which holds 1915 records.

When I was last researching this part of the family The BMM reading rooms were closed so my trail paused. There are always other branches to investigate!

The before picture

It has occurred to me that should anyone see the photo of Paddy they would not appreciate the skill of Irene so here's the photo in it's original state.







This is one of Carol's versions.

13th May 2009

It is ages since I have added to this blog, basically after being off work ill for ages I returned part-time and tried hard to make things work. Sadly they didn't and I have now resigned. Need to find a new job but in the mean time I am good at keeping busy. I enjoyed keeping the blog and will re read and fill in the gaps later.

Still enjoy searching out the family and spending time on the Forums, namely Rootschat and BBC Family History Forum. People there are very kind.

One of the"jobs" I decided to do was to clear out rubbish and tidy cupboards. Found lots of old Photos which had belonged to my Aunt Ciss and posted some for dating and restoring on Rootschat.-Amazed how many people are willing to spend their time restoring for other people and am very grateful to Irene, Carol, Wendy, Emjaybee, Bill and Carolyn for the pictures and Jim and China for help dating pictures.

The picture I chose to post is by Irene and is the first one of Paddy to be restored.

At Last

The first set of documents came Thursday, could wait on longer and set of for Kew on Friday. I have a busy few days ahead and was impatient. Sadly couldn't find my grandfather on Greenbatt in 1915 so I guess it's back to Canada. I spent Friday randomly looking though crewlists from 1915,but found nothing there are hundreds of them. I would see Dublin as a birthplace, heart would skip a beat, but no success. The cost to has Canadian lookups is not to expensive , travelling to NA at Kew for a day costs £15 pounds, but it is so much more rewarding to find information for yourself.

Waiting

Am still watching the post for letters from Canada. OK, I know the one posted Monday won't be here yet, but the first letter with photocopies from Agnes Ellen Hasn't arrived yet. How long will I have to wait?

Information from Canada

Above The Greenbatt

Well, I got a response to the Thelma really quickly and this time found out the names of two more ships my grandfather worked on, am now in 1916! It's slow work, but I am hoping thathe was still on the earlier ship Greenbatt at the end of 1915. All 1915 records are in UK. So will check out that possibility before requesting more research from Canada. I don't like the way my husband looks when I tell him I have spent more money on family history! And no, I do have to say or I feel guilty. To be honest it's so much more rewarding to find the information for myself.