W wanders around the world

I am participating in the A to Z 2012 blog challenge throughout April. My theme is a genealogical travelogue or a travel genealogue (I’m not sure which).

W is for West Drayton (Nottinghamshire, England)

West Drayton church where John Cass was buried. © P Cass 2006

My husband’s Cass ancestors were in West Drayton in the early 19^th century where his 3x great grandfather, John Cass, was a teacher. John and his wife Suzannah had married in Southwark, London, so presumably there was a reason for them to relocate. We visited the small village in 2006 but didn’t manage to find out any more about the family’s life or work in West Drayton. We did hit it lucky with information for John Cass’s widow in Retford and Moorgate, thanks to a kind gentleman in West Drayton who referred us to the local library.

If any of my English readers have home-grown tips on how to pursue this further, I’d be very pleased to hear of them.

W is for Wewak (Papua New Guinea)

Another guest post from Mr Cassmob in the A to Z series on the places he lived in Papua New Guinea. Although we visited there for a weekend while we lived in Goroka, our memories of it from that time are hazy.

The beautiful crushed-coral beach at Wewak. © P Cass

Wewak is the capital of the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea where I lived at Brandi High School, 9 miles outside Wewak, when his father was Headmaster there in the late 1950s. The school – dormitories, classrooms, kitchen – was built on the river flats. All the buildings were on stilts 3-4 feet high, so that when the river overflowed after heavy rains, the floods ran under the buildings, across the soccer fields and down to the sea. From the Cassmobs’ house high on the hill, they looked out over the school and the jungle to the black-sand beach, where the incoming waves created an unremitting 24-hour roar which was deafening at first and then merged into the background.

This was the time of Indonesia’s konfrontasi with Malaya. Australia expanded its defence capabilities, including construction of airstrips in theSepik mountains and building a new barracks for the Pacific Islands Regiment at Moem Point between Wewak and Brandi. This meant goodbye to lazy Sundays picnicking on Moem Beach and snorkelling over the coral reef 10 yards offshore.

W is for Würzburg (Bavaria, Germany)

Rococo splendour in Würzburg. © P Cass

Würzburg is the home of the archdiocesan archives for the Catholic church in the Franconia region. I’m sure in my short visit I only scratched the surface of what was available, hampered by language as well as time. However among their holdings are the parish registers and family books (Familienbücher) for the various Catholic parishes. Würzburg itself is also a pretty city with lovely old buildings to view, but what is sight-seeing when family history opportunities await. I also visited the general archives in an attempt to find out whether there were any military records from the 19^th century, or departure permissions, but I was told (I think) that there were none. Of course we may have mutually misunderstood what the other person was trying to ask/convey.

W is for Wales (United Kingdom)

My Partridge family hover around the Welsh-English border and my 3x great grandfather states his place of birth as Monmouth (county or city, is the question). I believe I’ve found the correct baptism in Monmouth itself based on naming patterns and if so, I do indeed have links to Wales. We passed round the perimeter of Monmouth on a recent visit to the UK but didn’t have time to sightsee.

W is for Wallumbilla (near Roma, Queensland)

The Paterson and Kunkel families lived in the small settlement of Pickenjennie on the outskirts of Wallumbilla, while another set of relations, the Lees, lived in Wallumbilla itself. There have been Kunkel descendants in or near the town since the late 19^th century.

If you have an interest in Wallumbilla I can recommend these two books:

Onward with Honour: Wallumbilla Primary School history by Roslyn Stemmler, 1993

Prickly Pear Frenchman by Roslyn Stemmler, 2009 ( I get very jealous of Roslyn’s collections of letters)