On August the 20th 1913, a young woman of sixteen arrived in Hull by sea, having travelled alone from Lithuania... Her name was Annie Zitkus (seated far left in main photograph), and she had come to England partly to escape the turmoil in Eastern Europe; and partly in the wake of her elder sister Petronie, who had settled in Leeds the previous year...

Around the same time, Joseph and Caterina Zelina decided to move from Manchester across the Pennines to Leeds, where they rented a house in Scott Street, with their four children, including a sixteen year old son, Alexander...

In 1915, Annie Zitkus and Alexander Zelina met, and subsequently married... and unknowingly started their lives as my Grandparents...

These pages are an attempt to illustrate the story of one family during the 20th century... and in doing that I hope there may be things of interest not only to other members of the family and relations... but perhaps also to other families, who may have a similar story of their own...

Each thumbnail on the opening Family Tree Page will (eventually), take you to a page about that person, and I have tried - where possible- to use images that also have some wider social interest... Text in blue is either a working link or it will be a link at some point in the future...

And if anyone from the Selina, Batty, Zitkus, Zelanka, Veltiroota, Verbylaite, or Harrison, etc..! families
has any information... or you would just like to get in touch, please do feel free to e-mail me:

Howard Selina:

Marsden, October 2021