Ian Hedges’ Family Tree

I was invited on Friday to try out the latest beta of the 1911 census website run by FindMyPast. The tempation was too great to resist, so I headed over to the site.

I searched first for my grandfather Henry Hedges, who would have been 14 in the census. As it is in beta, the site doesn’t have all the counties available, even so it still returned four Henry Hedges’ aged 13-15. Unlike the 1901 Census results, there is no indication of where the person is born, so you have to buy a view of the transcription to see if it the correct one.

When the 1901 census was released, nearly 7 years ago, it cost 50 pence to see a transcription and 75 pence to see an actual image. If you buy the largest package of credits for the 1911 census available, it will cost you 10 credits (80 pence) to see a transcription and 30 credits (£2.40) to see an image.

Needless to say after a couple of hours of searching I had exhausted my 280 credits (£24.95), with next to nothing to show for the outlay. The thought of potentially repeating this for every person in my family tree, with the same results is just not financially viable.

I did find my grandmother on my mum’s side, and have a copy of the actual household return. It is different from previous censuses in that the original household returns have been scanned not the enumerators log. This means that I was looking at my great grandparents’ handwriting, Carrie Moulden I think. Much as I want to search for my relatives, I can see me waiting until this is available on one of the subscriptions rather than pay-per-view. For me this is just too expensive as it stands.

Last Friday, I searched the Incoming Passenger lists on Ancestry.co.uk and found Henry Hedges several times in the index. I did also find one of his return voyages by manually searching the voyages about the time he was due to return. This was the entry for the February 1926 trip, however I didn’t have the source citation, as I couldn’t find a way to find this from the image.

Common sense has prevailed. I searched for the person listed above him in the list, ‘H L Hall’, and once I had found him and confirmed it was the same image, I had my referance: Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 811; Item: 76

Now all I need to do is find Henry returning in 1928 and 1930. This is when it starts to get frustrating!

Last week I did try finding him in 1928, but gave up when I hit two months that I expected him to be travelling where there were multiple incorrect images against the ship names. It made it impossible to search.

Searching in 1930, I was looking in March and April as these seemed to be the most likely months. I started checking the ships of the Elder Dempster Line, but came across the same problems. Here is an example of the problem:

Liverpool, March 1930, M.V. Apapa. There are 13 images in the set; they comprise of M.S. Apapa page 2, 4, 6, 5, 1, T.M.V. Aba (Apr 1930) page 9, 8, 10, 12, 11, M.S. Apapa page 14, 13 and 15. So not only are they out of order and pages missing, they are not even all the same ship or month. I have reported the errors to Ancestry like I did last week. The really annoying thing is, Henry would have been on page 3 if he was travelling on the Apapa in March 1930.

While the image quality of the scans is good, the quality control on the indexing is appalling for some months. I think it was March and April 1928 that were particularly bad last week, I gave up reporting in the end because almost every image was wrong. I guess this has been outsourced, but there should have been better supervision or quality inspection. I have also contacted Ancestry Support detailing the problems with examples and asking if reporting individual errors was the best way when there were so many.

Ancestry.co.uk have the Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960 available to search if you have a Premium or Worldwide subscription. I have a Premium subscription and so I have searched for my grandfather, Henry Hedges returning to the UK from Africa.

• Appam of Elder Dempster & Co Ltd from Lagos to Liverpool via Teneriffe, Sekondi, Sierra Leone, Freetown, Bathurst, Accra and Plymouth arrived in Plymouth on 3rd March 1924. Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 758; Item: 16. Henry Hedges, age 27 was landed at Plymouth. He boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of 68 Walton St, Chelsea, London and travelled 1st class. His occupation is listed as Reader. His country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘Nigeria’. His country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘British Possessions’.
• Adda of African Steamship Company Ltd from Lagos to Liverpool arrived in Plymouth on 22nd February 1926. H Hedges, age 29 was landed at Plymouth. He boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of 68 Walton St, Chelsea, London and travelled 1st class. His occupation is listed as Reader. His country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘Nigeria’. His country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘British Possessions’.
• Adda of African Steamship Company Ltd from Port Harcourt to Liverpool via Port Harcourt, Lagos, Accra, Takoradi, Freetown, Plymouth arrived in Plymouth on 16th December 1931. Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 960; Item: 40. H Hedges, age 34 was landed at Plymouth. He boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of 243 Acton Lane, Acton ?????, London and travelled 1st class. His occupation is listed as Printer. His country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘Nigeria’. His country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘Other parts of the British Empire’.
• Appam of Elder Dempster Lines Ltd from Port Harcourt to Liverpool via Lagos, Accra, Takoradi, Freetown, Las Palmas and Plymouth arrived in Plymouth on 13th November 1933. Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 1014; Item: 79. Henry Hedges, age 36, was landed at Plymouth. He boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of 24 Actors lane, London W4 and travelled 1st class. His occupation is listed as Printer (G.T.)His country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘British Possession’. His country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘Other parts of the British Empire’.
• Accra of Elder Dempster Lines Ltd from Calabar to Liverpool via Port Harcourt, Lagos, Accra, Takoradi, Monrovia, Freetown, Bathurst, Madeira, Las Palmas and Plymouth arrived in Plymouth on 2nd June 1935. Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 1063; Item: 62. Mrs H Hedges, age 27 was landed at Plymouth. She boarded in Accra( i think that’s what it says), had a proposed UK address of Queen’s Head, Long Marston, Tring, Herts and travelled 1st class. She has no listed occupation. Her country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘BP’. Her country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘Other parts of the British Empire’.
• Accra of Elder Dempster Lines Ltd from Port Harcourt to Liverpool via Port Harcourt, Lagos, Accra, Takoradi, Freetown, Madeira, Las Palmas and Plymouth arrived in Plymouth on 7th January 1936. Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 1087; Item: 143. H Hedges, age 38 was landed at Plymouth. He boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of Queen’s Head, Long Marston, Tring, Herts and travelled 1st class. His occupation is listed as Civil Servant. His country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘Nigeria’. His country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘Other parts of the British Empire’.
• M.S. Adda of Elder Dempster Lines Ltd from Calabar to Liverpool via Lagos, Accra, Takoradi, Freetown, Madeira, Las Palmas and Plymouth arrived in Plymouth on 4th January 1938. Source Citation: Class: BT26; Piece: 1144; Item: 43. H Hedges, age 40 was landed at Plymouth. He boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of Queens Head, Long Marston, Tring and travelled 1st class. His occupation is listed as Printer. His country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘Nigeria’. His country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘Other parts of the British Empire’. Also on this voyage is his wife, Lillian aged 30 and my father Peter aged 2. They both also boarded in Lagos, had a proposed UK address of Queens Head, Long Marston, Tring and travelled 1st class. Neither had an occupation listed. Their country of last permanent residence is listed as ‘England’. Their country of intended future permanent residence is marked as ‘England’.

Combining it with the outgoing trips I already had, this gives me the following trips:

• October 1922. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 25, Proof Reader.
• March 1924 Lagos to Plymouth. Henry Hedges, age 27, Reader.
• June 1924. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 27, Reader.
• February 1926 Lagos to Plymouth. Henry Hedges, age 29, Reader.
• July 1926. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 29, Reader.
• August 1928. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 31, Proof Reader.
• August 1930. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 33, proof reader.
• December 1931 Port Harcourt to Plymouth. H Hedges, age 34, Printer.
• April 1932. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 34, printer.
• November 1933 Port Harcourt to Plymouth. Henry Hedges, age 36,  Printer (G.T.)
• April 1934. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 37, printer. Lillian Hedges, age 26.
• June 1935 Calabar to Plymouth. Mrs H Hedges, age 27.
• January 1936 Port Harcourt to Plymouth. H Hedges, age 38, Civil Servant.
• June 1936. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 39, printer.
• April 1937. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Mrs H Hedges, age 29 and P H Hedges, age 1.5.
• January 1938 Calabar to Plymouth. H Hedges, age 40, Printer. Mrs H Hedges (Lillian) aged 30 and Mstr P Hedges (Peter) aged 2.
• May 1938. Liverpool to Lagos, Nigeria. Henry Hedges, age 41, printer.

Although I have some return trips missing at the moment, it looks like Henry served for about 18 months abroad and then after travelling time had about 4 months in the UK before returning to Nigeria. In April 1937, when my grandmother and my father travelled to Nigeria, they listed their country of future permanent residence as Nigeria, so it looks like they were all intending to stay. However, my father contracted malaria while there and they came back in January 1938 and listed their future residence as England.