Thanks so much, Johnny amd Jenny- I much appreciate what you've told me. It really expands the story of my great-uncle Fred Mellor. I can now give him a separate chapter in the Family History.
(In an attempt to make my research interesting to the rest of the family, I write the history in a discursive , story-style to go alongside the Tree and all the copies of documents/certs. etc)
Though Fred himself only came back briefly to UK when his father Jabez died, Fred's uncle Joe Battye seems to have made a number of transatlantic crossings 1884-1930, rather too many for a working man to afford or need to made- I feel safe in at least suggesting that he might have had some recruiting or "spread the good news about US" function.
