I’m not surprised that I receive a response from across the pond…!

Since I took up this Genealogy thing I have discovered the Pedley name all over the planet. However, I cannot, with any certainty, grasp at your family details and embrace you as a long-lost cousin! I have discovered it is not as easy as all that.

I can only offer you – in return – a few details of my own, which are: I am James Pedley, a retired newspaper printer aged 80. My branch of the family has nothing so solubrious to compare with your occupation as a trial lawyer – my father, another James, having been a truck-driver for most of his life.

My mother, Doris, does have claim to relatives in The States, though. Her cousin, May Rushton, married Phil Banner after WW1 ended and he was demobilised from the British Army. They emigrated to America in 1920 and settled in Laramie, Wyoming.

Their daughter, Rose, was born in Laramie in 1921. She grew up to become Deputy County Assessor, and to marry Harold (Bud) Rasmussen – a private contractor.

I did, in fact, pay Rose a visit some years ago – so she, at least, was one blood relation in the USA I was able to say “Hello” to…

I have one sister – Jean – who is aged 77 and a widow. My 50-year-old son, Mark, is a market research manager working for Agilent, an offshoot of American International: Hewlett-Packard – with whom he began his career in Germany 24 years ago. He spends his time looking after four areas of Agilent’s planet that require his supervision – in Europe, America, Taiwan, and Singapore. (I should have spent a bit more time with my own education, I think…!)

Anyway, James, I guess that’s about all I can say in reponse to your own. It was nice to hear from you and – who knows? – you may run into may son, Mark, sometime when he is on a business trip to America…!!!

Thanks for coming back to me,

Jim Pedley
Mark is actually expected home for a week or two tomorrow, and my wife, Joan, and I are, obviously, lookingt forward to the visit…!

james k. pedley

But I love your country, particularly its geography, as is evidenced by my account of a trip to the US my son treated me to – as a retirement present – a few years ago. If you care to read it, you’ll find it is included in my blog – but you will have to go right back to the beginning, when I first started with WordPress.

Regards,

Nice to know I can depend on your encouragement…

Dad

looks like you gat to grips with the posting! The blog is great. Keep the posts coming. You may be tied down a little now, but your writing is as good as ever! Keep it up!

Mark

Mind you as an ‘Oldie’ or ‘Silver Surfer’- as I believe folk of my generation are called – I shouldn’t really be battered down by lack of confidence when I issue my first, very own, blog to this outlet that my son has compiled for me.

It is a fact that some of the comments I have been browsing are going to compare quite easily with my own spoutings…

At the moment I am groping for experience in the mechanics of conducting a blog, and I hope the rest of you will forgive my puny efforts at saying ‘Hi’ to you, my fellow bloggers.

So, here goes: ‘Hi, there World. Any room for an ‘Oldie?’

I hadn’t intended to write a ’story’ about the visit -but when Mark, my son, read the notes he asked me to turn it into a book.

I was a little rueful. “Who’ll want to read anything I write?”, I asked him.

“I’ll want to”, was his answer. So I wrote it.

But he wasn’t satisfied. On his usual Christmas visit a couple of weeks ago (he lives and works in Germany) he opened this blog for me and insisted I publish “Out West” on the Web…!

So that’s the story about the story, Steve. Mark uploaded the first few chapters for me. Now I have to learn how to handle my own, personal blog…! I’ll publish more as soon as I have wised up on the mechanics of handling blogs…

Meanwhile, thanks for the comment and it’s nice to meet you.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

Regards,

Jim Pedley

great narrative, Jim. Looking forward to reading the following chapters!

Steve in Michigan, USA.