All I know about my mother's past is that she came over from England on a steamship with her mother when she was a child right after World War II. I don't know where in England they were from. I think they left Liverpool. How can I find out more about my mother and grandmother, both who are now deceased?
Answer:
You probably want to start with SHIP MANIFESTS since your grandmother and mother will first show up on the United States Census in the 1950 census which won't be out for another decade. A ship manifest may tell you where they left and where they are going to.
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An alternative would be to send away to the SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION for the ORIGINAL APPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL SECURITY FOR YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR GRANDMOTHER.
A person may have APPLIED for Social Security without ever collecting it. You can check the SOCIAL SECURITY DEATH INDEX to see if either ever collected. They may have collected nothing but the death benefit but, if so, they should be on the Index. Even if they are not on the index it's worth the time and money to send away for the original application.
The original application should give you their mother's maiden name as well as where she was going to work, if, like many people in the past, she only applied because she had to for employment. Be aware that a person may not have applied if they were self employed, if they or their spouse was a doctor or if they or their spouse worked for the rail road.
As for ship manifests there are a number of independent sites such as THE SHIPS TRANSCRIBERS GUILD that have looked at original handwritten manuscripts and turned them into text on the Internet. You can check ANCESTRY, FOLD3, or another SUBSCRIPTION genealogy research database for NEW YORK SHIP RECORDS. My guess is that they will be listed as having left SOUTH HAMPTON, England to NEW YORK, but there were a lot of other ports open and operating in that era. Ships from German ports and from Liverpool stopped in South Hampton. Some people got off one ship for a few days and continued their voyage across the Atlantic on another.
PS: I did a search for British War Brides and found that the Queen Mary was used as a ship to bring brides to the United States.
