Hi all
I am researching a distant forebear who had what might be referred to as a 'colourful' life in the first decades of last century. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was a petty fraudster, with a practised line in card game and horse racing swindles. He died in the 1950s and as far as I can tell, he led a reasonably respectable life later on. But in his younger days, he was evidently quite the operator.
He was not always, or even all that often, successful. I understand that he did some prison time in France fo his misdemeanours - a year or a bit less, sometime between about 1910 and 1915. I would love to know more about that, but that brickwall has proved impenetrable so far.
But I do know that he plied his trade on both sides of the Channel. Going on newspaper reports from the time, he operated mainly in London, the South of England and Wales in the UK, and the big summer season resorts in France. To try and get a better handle on his movements between say 1900 and 1925, and also to try and narrow the window in which he might have been imprisoned in France, it would be really useful if there were any kinds of records, specifically passenger lists or similar, for the main Channel Crossing routes back then.
Can anyone suggest a possible data source? Were passport records kept for those early decades of last century. Were passports even required or in use?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
