Migrant departures

[GordonFindlay]

My Mother arrived in NZ on a Yugoslav government boat in January 1949. She joined the boat in Trieste, Italy. i have shipping documentation for that part of her trip, Trieste to Auckland.

[The boat was sent to Australia and NZ to repatriate Yugoslavs after the war and carried a small number of passengers to avoid travelling empty.]

She was from Arbroath, Angus. Apparently there was such a huge demand for passages from the UK that it was common for people to get themselves to the continent and join a ship there.

Is there anywhere I can look for her leaving Scotland, and/or arriving in Italy? [She does not appear in the departures lists on Find My Past.]

[GrahamSimons]

No records have been kept of travel between the Britain and Europe - the only exception being ships that sailed from (say) London to India but also called at a port in (say) France on the way.

She would have had a passport, but I think from this guide that looking for information from the passport application will be a lot of work for no reward: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/passports/

[GordonFindlay]

Thanks for that - at least I know to waste time looking for something that doesn't exist.

[sancti]

What was her name?

Who did she travel with?

[GordonFindlay]

Hi

Her name was Jessie Cargill Shepherd. She travelled alone from Trieste to Auckland (have that part of the travel)  so I presume alone from Scotland to Italy.

Slainte
Gordon

[sancti]

Did she have any military service?

Could she have been in Italy at the end of the war?

[GordonFindlay]

No to both suggestions I fear. 

She spent the war years at home in Arbroath, helping to sell the fish her relatives caught.

As far as we know she had never left Scotland before travelling to Trieste to join  the ship sailing to, eventually, NZ. Quite an adventurous thing to do!

Slainte
Gordon