Back to the 20th century
Emma Jolly’s article in the August issue on 20th- century sources was most useful, listing some new to me and features of others that I had overlooked, such as the ability to search the 1939 Register by address. This greatly helped my research into the history of a house and its residents in Hove, including a male traveller for an English silk manufacturer whose first name was Clarissa!
However, Emma doesn’t mention street directories alongside telephone directories. For the Hove house these have been invaluable for identifying its residents over many decades, but street registers can also be useful for family history.
A 1920s street directory for Thame, for example, listed my grandfather not just as a GP but also included information that I had not found elsewhere about his other medical roles, such as being the doctor for the nearby workhouse.
Emma is no doubt correct for British records in stating that “airline passenger lists have not survived”, but records of flights do survive in the US National Archives in Washington. Just recently, researching one of my ‘adopted extended family’ John Henry Crook, in turn stockbroker, Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander and Planter in Trinidad and Tobago, Ancestry threw up records of two flights, the first not strictly an airline passenger list but a New York immigration record of passengers on a BOAC flight from London to the USA. The second was a passenger list for a Pan American World Airways flight from Idlewild ( later Kennedy) Airport. Such records of course are only likely to be useful for tracking the small group of ancestors wealthy enough to take flights to or from the USA in the mid-20th century. Derek Turner Editor replies: Glad you enjoyed the article Derek, and thank you for the extra tips.