TheShipsList-L Archives

From: "Chris Reay" <>
Subject: [TSL] Looking for lost passengers?
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 11:53:04 -0000

As you may be able to tell - I am a newcomer to this subject.

Can anyone suggest to me a possible appropriate website that I might be able to search for information on my great grandmother, Lillie Jane WELLS who came over to England (I believe Yorkshire), from Canada (British Columbia) after her husband (also a Canadian) died in 1885. Her married name was Lillie Jane Heinlaw (or possibly Hemlaw). On this journey she met the man who was to become my great grandfather, a Yorkshireman called William TOWNSLEY. I don't know why she met him on a ship - ie. what was he doing visiting Canada? He was involved in farming and brickmaking in Yorkshire - although he may have been visiting some distant cousins in Canada who had started Brickmaking over there.

Anyway, my great grandmother returned to B.C.(again I don't know on what ship) and then she returned to Yorkshire, England and lived there for several years before emigrating back to B.C. in the early 1900's with her new husband and their three children.

So, any information on what ships she and her future husband may have been on would be much appreciated.

She may have even married her husband on one of these ships? I have been looking in B.C. and England and have so far failed. I know that she was bereaved after 1885 and that my grandmother was born in 1891. My only clue is that it may have been 1890 but where did the marriage take place? - another mystery!

Maybe this is too much of a mamouth task! But, any thoughts or comments would be so gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks in advance for any help.

Kind regards,

Sarah Reay (Northumberland, England).

This thread:

• [TSL] Looking for lost passengers? by "Chris Reay" <>