The Eastern Side
When I first got involved with the family research I had no idea that we had any family connection with the Eastern side of the USA. We knew some family had gone to California, so apart from landing at Ellis Island in New York, there was no other connection, how wrong we were.
The first surprise we got was when a relative, we had made contact with in the UK, Peter Knewstubb, said to us, "You haven't got Mildred in your tree".
MIldred? who was MIldred? This led us on a whole new path of discovery into the family on the Eastern side, remember this was before internet searches were available. Since Ancestry & Find My Past came along, we have found lots of cousins on the Eastern side and I am now in regular contact with 3 of them in Massachusetts.
This is the picture that started our East Side search. It shows Mildred May Lake my 1st cousin 2 x removed (on the right) with Alice Knewstubb the wife of Peter, when they visited Mildred in the 1960's in Vermont.
We hadn't picked up on Mildred before because she had been born in Ontario Canada in 1897. Her father was George William Lake my 2nd Great Uncle who had been born in Plymouth Devon in 1851. George seemed to get around because he married his wife Sarah Ann Hill in Chelmsford Essex England, before moving to Guernsey. On 6 Apr 1891 the family of George, Sarah, Hilda (7), George Robert (5), & Lucy Emily (3) arrived in Boston having sailed on the SS Pavonia from Liverpool. In 1897 when Mildred was born they were living in Ontario Canada but by 1899 the family were living in Barre Washington County Vermont. Somewhere amongst all these moves, two of the children vanish, we do not know what happens to Hilda & Lucy Emily after arriving in Boston they simply disappear
Mildred lived in Vermont all her life. Her brother George died at the young age of 23 in 1909 and her father died in 1913 when she was just 16.
Her mother died in 1931.
Mildred worked for the purchasing department for the State of Vermont working her way to becoming Deputy Purchasing.
She died in 1995 just 5 years before we found out about her.
AMAZING STORY OF AUDREY TRAVERS
Audrey Travers the daughter of David Edwin Buller Travers & Edith Maude Cookney was born on 16 May 1927 in Hackney London. Her father was born in Loders Dorset so at the start of the war she was sent down to Dorset away from London. In the spring of 1944 she found that she was pregnant and the father, an American GI, Edmund William Duckworth, did the honourable thing and married her in April or May 1944.
On 6th June 1944, Edmund W Duckworth was killed in action on Omaha Beach Normandy and was buried in the Normandy American Cemetery.
Patrick William Duckworth was born on 21 Dec 1944 in Bridport Dorset.
After the war, Edmund's father, Leon Duckworth, asked President Truman for help in bringing his widowed daughter in law and his grandson to the USA.
Audrey and Patrick sailed on the Zebulon Vance from Southampton to New York on 5 Feb 1946 arriving in New York on 22 Feb 1946. The Mother and child returned to England for a visit in 1948 but settled in Salisbury, Wicomico, Maryland where they lived the rest of their lives.
Patrick died on his birthday 21 Dec 1995 with his mother Audrey dying on 7 Aug 2001. They are both buried in the Springhill Memory Gardens Hebron Wicomico Maryland.
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