What records should I look at? Austrian/Italian WW2 bride.

[Sahara]

My grandmother was born in Italy, but moved to Austria where her mother's family were from at some point during WW2. Whilst there she must have met my English grandfather whilst he was there for the war and they married in Austria in Jan 1947. She came over to Britain to live.

I do not know what records I should be consulting, if there are any. I have a copy of their marriage certificate but wish I knew more about when they came to England, would they have travelled together? I also wish I knew how they actually met but I very much doubt that info will be out there for me to find!

Does anyone have any suggestions of records I could consult to see if I can find any more information. Unfortunately both of them died when I was a very young child so I cannot ask them anything. I am happy to look at anything/everything if there is a possibility of even a small snippet!

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions. 

[still_looking]

In terms of where they met your best bet would be to find out what your grandfather did during the war, assuming he was with the armed forces you should be able to find out where he was stationed.

In terms of how they arrived here then you might want to try this:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1518

as they may have arrived by ship

good luck

[Bluebird Research]

The Ancestry link is unlikely to be of assistance here, I think, as that record series (BT26 at TNA) is incoming long-haul passenger journeys which (like the BT27 outward-bound voyages) generally exclude short-distance British Isles and European journeys (including cross-Channel).

Research prospects in both Italy and Austria are generally good, provided you can find out a specific place of origin - without that, it can be tricky and time-consuming.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the family background, e.g. ethnicity, religion and anything re places of residence in Austria and/or Italy etc?

Bluebird

[carinthiangirl]

the british army was stationed in East-Tyrol, Carinthia and Styria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Austria
http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Cold-war/Austria.html
also Vienna had some british zones.
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Wien_Besatzungszonen.png&filetimestamp=20090109154111
http://www.wien-vienna.com/occupation.php

so she must have moved to one of this areas.
of sure i think she was from South-Tyrol, Italy were they had at that time the "Option" an agreement between Hitler and Mussolini for german-orgin people there to move in the German Reich. South-Tyrol was lost from the austrian-hungarian empire after WW1 to Italy. a real italian would not haved moved that time to Austria i think. also as there was before the WW1 where they were enemies!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trentino-Alto_Adige/S%C3%BCdtirol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Tyrol_Option_Agreement

without a placename think nothing to find out.

what was grandmothers maidenname?
if you have marriage-certificate which town is shown - this would make more sense for finding out more and would be a starting-point. possibly they met there.
can you show a scan for the certificate?