Henry goes to Australia

My mother had another uncle, Henry. He was the older brother of Max, Jack and my mother's mother.

I have found a P&O passenger manifest showing that Henry with his wife, Margarethe, and teenage daughter, Ilse, sailed from London on 1 September 1939 aboard the Stratheden bound for Brisbane.

They had been in England for about 4 months.

They were in Australia by October 1939.

War in Europe was declared while they were travelling. A family story says they were also shadowed by a German U-boat. The Stratheden returned to Europe as a troop ship loaded with young Australians bound for the European War. Ilse had joyful memories of the ship and her many young friends she made en route. It was such a welcome relief and total change from the chaos, violence and persecution in their home city of Vienna, Austria, and an anxious Britain, with war clouds gathering rapidly.

Australian records for family history researchers, particularly those for South Australia, are not as readily available on the internet as they are for other countries such as the UK and the USA.

Fortunately my Australian family have remained in contact with us so I know that this branch of the family settled in Australia and Ilse married, having two sons.

Unfortunately she died at only 52 in a tragic accident whilst swimming in the sea.

One of the two sons married and he now has a family of his own.

They in turn are in contact with another family member in Australia and through him I have been put in touch with living relatives in New Zealand, Israel, Canada and the USA.

The discovery of these other families was even more rewarding because very little of my mother's family was known to have survived the war and she did not previously know of their existence.

The challenge was now to see if I could make contact with my newly discovered family, to see where these new lines would fit on the family tree and to continue this family history journey with any additional information I could gather.

I had four names and four email addresses for new family members spread across across the world.