THE LAKE FAMILY TREE TRAVELS THE WORLD
When I first got involved with John in researching the tree I thought that in the old days everyone stayed put in their town or village, how wrong could I be. I was shocked by the amount of travelling around they seem to do and in many cases they would have had no knowledge of what they were travelling to. Many travelled simply to get work, if there was none where they lived, they just went somewhere else. For the pioneers going to the USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand, they had no TV documentaries or films to show them what it was like, they just went into the unknown.
As the research progressed it seemed we had set off on a world journey as the map below shows and I am not talking about holidays. All areas coloured in green shows where people in our tree have been born, married, died, resided, worked, stationed with the army or fought in wars. It covers 25% of countries in the world, I have learnt more about geography doing the tree than I ever did at school.
The countries are: Antarctica, Antigua & Barbuba, Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (old Belgian Congo), Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Gibralter, Guernsey, Herm, Honk Kong, India, Iraq, Ireland, Isle Of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philipines, Puerto Rica, Russia, Sark, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sudan, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, Ukraine, UK & USA.
The family has representation in every county in England, most counties in Wales, many in Scotland and some in Northern Ireland, it also covers every state of the USA, every state in Australia and every territory in Canada except one. Probably the most remotest place we have someone in the tree from is, the Island of Zambongo in the Philipines.
The migrations started long ago but they are still happening today. Newer members of the tree are still migrating one to Australia 13 years ago, one to USA for 2 years, another to Australia a year ago. Travel now is so much easier than it was in the past and mostly today it's much more about enjoyment than survival but the sense of adventure still remains.
During our research we have travelled quite a lot. In the earlier days there was not the availability of information on the internet as there is now (see internet connections page), so we had to travel to record offices these include: National Archives Kew Surrey, Metropolitan Archives Islington London, Barnstable Exeter Plymouth Devon, Taunton Somerset, Chippenham Wiltshire, Gloucester Gloucestershire, Cardiff Glamorgan, Cwmbran Gwent, Stoke & Stafford Staffordshire, Runcorn & Chester Cheshire, Reading Berkshire, Winchester & Southampton Hampshire, Jersey Channel islands, Priaulx Library Guernsey Channel islands, Melbourne Library Archives Victoria Australia, Church of Latter Day Saints Family History Library Salt Lake City Utah & Los Angeles Library Archives California.
The visits to Utah & California coincided with our visit to meet lots of cousins that were unknown to us before we started the research. Our thanks to all of them for making our visit so memorable.
My thanks to the website: www.travbuddy.com for being able to produce the map shown above. If you want to make your own map of places you have travelled to simply click the button below and register and tick off the places it's simple.
