Failure is the Key to Success

Lyall rang from New Zealand this morning to wish us Merry Christmas. While we were talking, he mentioned that there was someone on Genesreunited who had listed my greatgrandmother with the correct location and dates. I contacted them this morning and have had an email back and access to her tree. She is my second cousin on a branch of the family that everyone had lost contact with.

So at the moment I’m all of a twitter having just added several new members of the family.

All in all a great Christmas present.

Tags:family tree,genesreunited

My brother and his wife had their second son late yesterday, so now I have two nephews. Timing being everything, it was a different birthday present for her.

I was looking at the passenger lists on FindMyPast and found that they had put the next decade 1930-1939 online.

I first searched for my father and found both him (aged 1.5) and my grandmother on MV Apapa travelling 1st class to Lagos 28th April 1937

I also found my grandfather travelling every 2 years to Lagos, Nigeria.

• 13th August 1930 on MV Apapa age 33, proof reader residing at 24 Lewis Road, Sheatham SW16
• 6th April 1932 on MV Accra age 34, printer residing at 243 Giston Lane, Aston W4
• 4th April 1934 on MV Accra age 37, printer residing at Long Marston, Tring. He is travelling this time with Lillian age 26. This must be their honeymoon as they were married on the 1st April.
• 3rd June 1936 on MV Apapa age 17 (hmm that can’t be right), printer residing at Queen’s Head, Long Marston, Tring, Herts.
• 18th May 1938 on MV Apapa age 41, printer residing at Queen’s Head, Long Marston, Tring, Herts.

Unfortunately, only the outbound passenger lists are available, so I don’t have details of the return trips. This means I don’t know how long he was away at a time.

I haven’t been able to find an outbound trip to Sierra Leone where he died in 1939. I’m guessing he may have travelled back from Lagos, Nigeria to Freetown, Sierra Leone some time during 1939.

One of the people in my family tree is Charles Moulden. He is my great-grandmother’s brother, he is also Lyall’s grandfather’s brother. When Lyall and Diana were over last year we worked through a lot of family tree information and Lyall was telling me that he thought Charles had been in the army and had died in India.

I was able to find him in the 1881 census aged 8 with the rest of the family. I had trouble finding an 18 year old Charles in the 1891 census, but I did find a 20 year old Charles Moulden as a private in the 5th Lancers in barracks. I wonder if he inflated his age to sign up. The 5th Lancers did serve in India, so this looked to match what Lyall had told me.

A couple of days ago, I was searching the army death returns indexes on FindMyPast and found the following entry for Charles Moulden:

• Moulden, Charles, 21 Meerut 1892 p129

After a bit more searching it appears that the 5th Lancers were in Meerut, India in 1892, so it looks like this may be him. I’ll have to do some more research, but at least I have some facts that match what was thought.

Tags:5th lancers,family tree,moulden

Talking with my mum this evening, we got talking about family tree and my grandfather. I was talking about where I found him on a boat to Lagos and my Mum mentioned that my grandmother Lillian had traveled out to Africa to be with him and had taken my father with her. It was while he was there that my father had caught malaria. I knew that my father had had malaria, but I always assumed it was while he was in the Navy. I’m not sure whether it was Nigeria or Sierra Leone that they travelled to yet.

The Findmypast site still only has the passenger lists up to 1929 at the moment, but once the 1930’s are up I will have to look for Lillian and my father as well as my grandfather.

Tags:family tree,hedges

Following up on Friday’s post, I am fairly certain that I have found my grandfather on several of his trips to Nigeria.

The Outbound Passenger Lists at Findmypast showed 4 entries during the 1920’s of H Hedges travelling from Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria.

I bought some vouchers and looked at the images and this is what I have found:

11th October 1922. Travelled on ship Elmina of the African Steam Ship Co. under master David Evans from Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. He travelled 1st Class. His address in the United Kingdom was 68 Walton Street, London. He was age 25 and his occupation was a Proof Reader.

18th June 1924. Travelled on ship Zaria of the British African S.N. Co. under master A. Beith from Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. He travelled 1st Class. His address in the United Kingdom was 68 Walton Street, London. He was age 27 and his occupation was a reader.

14th July 1926. Travelled on ship Zaria of the British African S.N. Co. under master A. Beith from Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. He travelled 1st Class. His address in the United Kingdom was 68 Walton Street, London. He was age 29 and his occupation was a reader.

8th August 1928. Travelled on ship Appam of the Elder Dempster Line under master A. Beith from Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. He travelled 1st Class. His address in the United Kingdom was 41 Rosavelle Road Fulham, London. He was age 31 and his occupation was a Proof Reader.

I know that Henry worked for Crown Agents and was Superintendant of Government Press 3 in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria in 1935, so this would seem to all tie in.

Each trip has an age for Henry and a date. By combining all the dates and ages that I have for him, I can narrow his date of birth down to between 12th October 1896 and 1st April 1897, so this matches my previous est 1897.

Checking the Births, Marriages, Deaths Indexes, there are 2 births of Henry Hedges registered in the Oct-Nov-Dec 1896, Jan-Feb-Mar 1897 and Apr-May-Jun 1897. One registered in St Saviour in Oct-Nov-Dec 1896 has a father John, the other registered in Jan-Feb-Mar in Marylebone 1897 has a father Henry. My grandfather’s father was also Henry, so I think it’s
starting to look very positive.

I have added a couple of new pages on my family tree website for Northern Provinces News and Crown Agents so that I can collect the information online in one place.

Tags:crown agents,family tree,hedges,nigeria