In the summer of 2024 I decided to check a few European destinations off of my bucket list, visiting Barcelona and Palma in Spain, then Warsaw, Poland, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. After Copenhagen, I decided to take the opportunity to take a side trip to one of my favorite cities, so I booked a flight to London before coming back through the Chunnel and visiting Amsterdam, before spending a few weeks with relatives in Germany. I wanted to visit the town of Hay-on-Wye, a small town in Wales, knick-named "The Book Town" for its preponderance of used book stores. Hay-on-Wye is not on the beaten path, and after realizing that I just couldn't fit it in to my schedule, I decided instead to make a visit to the British Archives just outside of London to see if I could find any information about my dad's time there after World War II. I have a passport size photo of him stamped by the British Home Office, and I know that he worked in a coal mine either in England or in Wales. I searched the British immigration records and could find nothing of him entering the country. I looked for ship manifests and enlisted help from a research assistant. He speculated that records of those coming by ship were widely scattered throughout different ports of entry or simply no longer kept - not an encouraging answer.
I did, however, manage to find naturalization records and death records for his cousin Waldemar, whose daughter still lives in England. I believe dad went to England with Waldemar. I have reached out to his daughter but she had no recollection of her father's activities during the post-war era.
All said, the archives, while an interesting travel experience, did not reveal anything I had not already known.
