Making sense of army ancestors

It's been a busy week so far with research projects.

The Gallipoli commemorations have obviously triggered some requests and it gave me enormous satisfaction to deliver reports to two clients on the 100th anniversary - to the day - of those ancestors hitting the beaches on 25th April 1915.

Recent projects have included:

1. The mystery of a Boer War militia enlistment and whether this man later served in India and with the RGA during the First World War
2. Unpicking the First World War service of a Westmorland and Cumberland Yeoman who later served with the Labour Corps
3. A private with the RAMC who later served with the Welsh Regiment
4. A Royal Munster Fusiliers regular who served in India before the First World War and served with the RMF and Royal Engineers during the Great War
5. A KOYLI recruit who went on to serve as a regular in the British Army and earned a General Service Medal with Iraq clasp to go alongside his 1914/15 Star trio
6. An HLI regular who served in India and who is mentioned multiple times in the HLI Chronicle. I even found a photo of him in the regimental football team (above) in October 1913
7. A Middlesex Regiment regular with service in India, Gallipoli and France and Flanders
8. A Yorkshire Regiment war-time enlistment who later served with the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment
9. Identifying when a 4th Dragoon Guard, born in the 1840s, must have enlisted and where he subsequently served
10. Researching the military career of a regular in the Dorsetshire Regiment who was awarded the India General Service Medal with clasps for the Punjab and Tirah.

Drop me a line if you think I could help with your own research project.

Ancestry publish WW1 diaries

Just in time for the Gallipoli anniversary, Ancestry has published a raft of war diaries from the First World War. These include diaries that could previously be accessed from The Naval & Military Archive or from The National Archives and also, for the first time, newly digitised pages from units that served at Gallipoli.

This is going to be a tremendous asset and one I shall be referring to a lot. The extract above, the first entry in the war diary for the 4th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, describes its landing on West Beach on 25th April 1915.

Words of comfort to an amputee

The card above shows wounded soldiers, all of them amputees, recovering at the Pavilion Hospital, Brighton.  It was sent to 32859 Pte William Henry Newsam of the 29th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, himself a recent amputee, in November 1917 while he was recovering at the Norfolk War Hospital in Thorpe.

The message on the reverse reads:

Dear Newsam

You will occupy one of these in due course but I may tell you they glory in operations. You are sure to lose another inch.

The signatory is unclear, possibly A J Butty, or Buttle/s (see below). I expect his words really cheered William Newsam up.

I acquired this card recently, along with W H Newsam's campaign medals, silver war badge and a lot of other very interesting material, and you can read more about him HERE.



"If our researchers can't help you, no-one can..."

So runs the puff from a dismal Forces War site; and this too from a company that will charge you £100 for an individual's service history, give or take a fiver, and take up to 45 days to deliver that research. 

I helped out someone yesterday who had parted with an obscene amount of money in return for three downloads from Ancestry's site. I was able to tell her when her ancestor had joined his regiment (which was not the same as the Derby Scheme enlistment date noted on his medal index card), the likely date that the man arrived in France and when he transferred to another regiment.  I also added contextual information and took time to explain the logic behind my conclusions. All of this was undertaken in 90 minutes for a fraction of that £100 robbery.

So, caveat emptor, and for goodness sake don't believe all that trumpet-blowing from an organisation which may be a legend in its own lunchtime, but is treated with scepticism by most of those who really do know a thing or two about military research.

If you have hit a brick wall in your own military research, do please drop me a line for an honest, no nonsense quote with real value reports rather than just over-priced images poached from rival websites.

Who Do You Think You Are - NEC, Birmingham

I'll be on the Findmypast stand at the WDYTYA show at the NEC in Birmingham from Thursday 16th April through to Saturday 18th April. As well as answering the usual enquiries, general and military, I'm giving a couple of talks on researching your First World War ancestor, and finding your Waterloo ancestor. 

If you're a reader of my blogs and you're going to be at the NEC, do pop over and say hello. If you can't make it to the NEC, all is not lost as both talks are being recorded for future webinars.

The image on this post, courtesy WDYTYA, does NOT feature the author of this blog.

Wounded soldiers at Roehampton

 

My thanks to Derek Hathaway for sending me this undated group photograph taken at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. Derek's grandfather, William Henson Jones, is pictured above, together with other patients named, or partially identified, on the reverse. This image and the information that follows are published on the off-chance that visitors to this blog might recognise their First World war ancestors.

 

I reproduce the reverse of this photo, below. I have expanded the transcription for the benefit of search engines.

 

Top Row

Private Bunting, Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regiment); Unidentified Private, AIF; Sister MacKenzie; Sergeant Henry, Lincolnshire Regiment; Lance-Corporal H Croft, 1/5th Buffs (East Kent Regiment); Private Hebbert, Rifle Brigade.

 

Centre

Private Westwood, Yorkshire Regiment; Gunner Perrin, South African Heavy Artillery, Private Blen Ray (?), AIF; Sister Smith; Bombardier Keegan, RFA; Private W H Jones, Royal Sussex Regiment; Corporal Maxwell, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

 

Bottom

Bob (?) SAS; Private Whelan, Royal Marine Light Infantry

 

 

Derek thinks the photo dates to between 1916 and 1918 and so I ran some preliminary searches on the names in the hope of narrowing this down a little, or at least finding out more about the men.

 

H Croft of the Buffs is probably 1193 (later, 240171) Private H H Croft who enlisted on the 23rd February 1914 and was discharged as a result of wounds on the 8th August 1917.  Private (Lance-Corporal) Croft only appears as "H H" Croft on the medal index card (below), medal rolls and silver war badge roll.

 

There are medal index cards for 16 men with the surname Maxwell who served with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Two of these men were corporals: 10986 Corporal John Maxwell and 13553 Corporal William Maxwell.  Of these two men, only 10986 John Maxwell received a silver war badge and so this is possibly the Corporal Maxwell (wearing a borrowed AIF hat) in the photograph above. John Maxwell enlisted on the 22th August 1914 and was discharged as a result of wounds on the 27th July 1917. The fact that both these men had been discharged in 1917 must date the photograph to no later than 1917.

 

 

Derek also sent me a second photograph, reproduced below. In this image, William Jones is seventh from the left. On the reverse is written: "35342 3rd Troop, 4 Squadron Dragoon [unidentifiable, possibly "Guards"], Mooltan Barracks, Tidworth, Hants".

 

 

I would welcome further thoughts or inputs on the men (and two nurses) in these photos.

 

 

Soldier cameos - South Africa & the Transvaal War

 

 

I picked up a number of army prints yesterday from what I now know to be the six-volume "South Africa & The Transvaal War" by Louis Creswicke which was published in 1900.  King Edward VII (above in 10th Hussars uniform) was still plain old HRH Prince Edward when this photo was taken, and an image of two CIV officers plus no evidence of Boer War medals on any of the other photos had made me think that the publication probably dated to around 1900. Turns out I was correct.

The images I bought were mostly cameos of soldiers from various regiments, as in the image of two Gordon Highlanders (below) but there are also some nicely posed group shots. I've used a black and white version of this RHA group (above) on a post elsewhere; note the jaunty pose of the sergeant, far left. I've seen these prints being offered for sale for £20 each on eBay which makes the 50p each I paid, something of a bargain.

Shell-shocked patients in new Bethlem records

Findmypast has just released patient admission registers and casebooks from the Bethlem Hospital in London. The records cover the years 1683-1932 and there are many admissions of soldiers or former soldiers who served in the First World War and were admitted suffering from shell-shock.

I have only started skimming the surface of these records but whilst doing so I also uncovered the records for a VAD nurse, Joanna Anderson, who had served at 55 General Hospital and who was admitted with neurasthenia in May 1918. How many shell-shocked men and women have casebook notes in this depressing collection of nearly 250,000 records it is impossible to say, but don't rule the Bethlem records out if your ancestor served in the First World War; particularly if they were diagnosed with neurasthenia or shell-shock.

The image on this page comes from archive film footage of shell-shocked patients recuperating at Netley Military Hospital. I've borrowed the image from the World War 1 Centenary archive which also has links to the original film footage.

Absent Voters - First World War

I've updated the Absent Voters' page. Some of the links were dead and I have also added a lot more known lists. Some of these are freely available online, others can be accessed for a fee (online or via a CD) and many more are still located in local archives and record offices.

As always I'd be interested to hear of the whereabouts of other lists that could be added to this scratch directory.

I've borrowed the image on this post from the Worcestershire Regiment website, and specifically the page that deals with absent voters from Worcester, Stourbridge, Evesham, Bromsgrove and Bewdley.

The essential Silver War Badge guide

A so-called "leading authority on military and family history" has dismissed the First World War silver war badge rolls in a newly published guide as "not very informative."  Of course, his assertion is complete and utter tripe. Here are nine reasons why the silver war badge rolls are an essential resource.

1. For a start, because so many service and pension records from the First World War do not survive, the rolls can provide vital information that is not recorded elsewhere. This fact alone makes the SWB rolls a vital resource.
2. The silver war badge rolls give the date a man enlisted.
3. The silver war badge rolls give the date a man was discharged.
4. The silver war badge rolls give the cause of discharge. Sometimes this might be simply expressed as the relevant regulation from King's Regulations but it usually states whether the cause is due to wounds or sickness. Occasionally, even more detail is given, such as the nature of the wounds or sickness (see below).

 

5. The silver war badge rolls state whether or not a man has served overseas.

6. Because the badge number is stated in every case, it is possible to check whether the badge you have in your collection really does belong with the medals you acquired at the same time. Similarly, a solitary silver war badge can, because of its unique number, open up a number of research paths for you.

7. Many silver war badge rolls also give the man's age (see below)

 

 

8. The silver war badge rolls will usually give the man's battalion or unit; information that often does not appear on medal index cards

9. Full names may be expressed on silver war badge rolls yet only appear as initials and last name on medal index cards.

 

So beware "leading authority" opinion and ignore the silver war badge roll at your peril. It's always been a fantastic resource and is arguably the most informative of all the First World War medal/badge rolls.

 

The photo on this post, which was, once upon a time, in my collection, shows a veteran wearing his silver war badge. Image extracts are from different SWB rolls and are Crown Copyright, The National Archives.