52 ancestors Week 20 (May 13th -19th ): Travel


Week 20 (May 13th -19th ): Travel



From Amy Johnson Crow - "Travel" is a part of many of our ancestors' lives. Travelling across an ocean or a continent for life in a new land. Travelling to a different state to elope. Travelling for work, either as a salesman or working the railroads or canals. Travelling for vacation. What ancestral travel tales have you found?



I have many ancestors that “travelled” for work and to move to new places to live, but I don’t have much information on them or any photos so the story could be very short (and boring). However, my Great Uncle “Fred” Arthur Wood was in the Royal Navy and “travelled” with them, and I have photos of him.

We had been told Fred was known as Arthur (it may have been his middle name but I have found no record of this) and this alone caused me no end of problems. I spent a long time searching for records linked to “Arthur Wood” and buying certificates linked to this name to find he wasn’t my ancestor. I can’t remember exactly how I found Fred as “Fred”, but I did. Fred was the brother of Grandma Hilda Wood, he was born in Bradford in 1913.

Fred married Margaret Mary Beattie (known as Aunt Beattie) in 1933. I can’t find them on the 1939 cenus but this could be due to them not being in the UK, but abroad.


Fred was an officer with the Royal Navy (according to a naval group that looked at the photos of his hat). In 1948 Fred and Margaret were in Nigeria. There are many photos linked to their time there. Including the picture to the left of them in their garden in Nigeria.
The picture right was taken from their house of the villagers in Nigeria building the new saw mill.


The photo below left was taken at Abraka, where they went swimming, it was about 3-4miles "travel" from where they lived in Nigeria according to the back of the photo.
 In 1952 Fred’s military “travel” saw him and his family (wife and daughter) move to Iraq. Again I have a few photos of the area (right), but not of Fred. The 2 photos right show the hotel in Iraq across the Baghdad river and the river from another angle.




Fred’s “travel” most likely didn’t end with just these 2 places, but these are what I know of due to the photos my Dad (Peter Lackey) had received from his Mother (Hilda Wood - Fred's sister).

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