412 replies to this topic

[stiletto_33853]

Hi Ravensblood,
In other listings it is down as the Company he served in at the time of the injury, sickness, I would imagine that they kept to the same format. No problem, I am glad that these lists have been useful to some.

Andy

[ravensblood]

Hi Ravensblood,
In other listings it is down as the Company he served in at the time of the injury, sickness, I would imagine that they kept to the same format. No problem, I am glad that these lists have been useful to some.

Andy

Thanks Andy
I am now aware that he was in the 9th D comp so I can now reserch where he was and what he did. Its so funny because as a month ago no one in the family really knew much about him only his last name Ledner, I have found out his birth first name and such in a short time. I think he died after the war from his injurys on the front. All the best and many thanks

Kirk

[PPCLI]

No. H. 2408 HAMILTON RECORD OFFICE

Transferred ex Hospitals in Malta for England per H.S. "Carisbrook Castle"
17th September 1915.

1st K.O.S.Bords. 18984 Pte.Macbeth J.
1st -----Do-----   19015   "  Kane D.
1st -----Do-----    8402    "  White J.
1st -----Do-----    6992    "  Hughes H.
1st -----Do-----    6169    "  Johnson W.
1st -----Do-----   16868   "  Scahill H.W.
1st -----Do-----   11369   "  Pemberton J.
1st -----Do-----   10980   "  McQuire W.

I have a keen interest in men who served with the KOSB during WW1. Until I found this list I didn't know they had been wounded/ill since, to my knowledge, none of these men are from my area so I hadn't found any reference in the local newspapers.

Sorry but am not sure of the value of all this .....
..... anyone can go into almost any public library and read newspapers from the period and compile lists at the rate of several hundred an hour.

*The value is in trying to find details of men who are not likely to mentioned in local newspapers.

Cheers,

Stuart

*edited content for clarification

[SteveE]

Admittance lists for hospitals might be useful but I would rather be told where the list is kept and its reference

include the references to the sources as well.

In answer to your questions, all the lists I've shown are available at the NA under reference WO329/3035.  Before you rush off and peruse these at your leisure be warned that they are re-used pages in the Hamilton Record Office SWB lists, I was looking for a Royal Scots man at the time I stumbled across them.

John, there is additional information on them and from what I can see from your posting it is quite possible that they show something you don't know about Mann and Hamm (I should ask Andy for the additional details if I were you   ).

Regards

Steve

[stiletto_33853]

References,
Try WO/363 as these pop up in soldiers records on a reasonably regular basis, quite often the soldiers records that they come from have no mention in the lists. I believe there was a shortage of paper and that the back of these lists were sometimes used to make notes on. (see post #84 where this has been mentioned)

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

John,
Hamm & Mann were both suffering from wounds and admitted to the Military Hospital, Old Park, Canterbury on 2/8/17, tell you anymore??? I presume your reference on one of the men was a typo as he would have been wounded two years running in August otherwise.

Andy

[purley]

[quote  


However, your obvious knowledge of finding individual men in local newspapers will be invaluable to my (and others) research. If you would be so kind to tell me which public library(ies) I need to visit to view the relevant newspaper(s) for these men, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Stuart
[/quote]

Almost any large public library with a local studies section will have either original copies or microfilms of their local papers, most of which published all the relevant casualty lists as reported by War Office. You will not get details of injuries or hospitals but there are often news items which give a lot of detail. They usually include the lists from their local county regiment(s) - for example the Berkshire papers tend to give all the Royal Berks and Ox and Bucks. Alternativley you can order the microfilms from the British Library (at around £80 per film. I have transcribed most of the Berkshire Chronicle lists for the Royal Berks and am always happy to answer questions

regards

John

[purley]

John,
Hamm & Mann were both suffering from wounds and admitted to the Military Hospital, Old Park, Canterbury on 2/8/17, tell you anymore??? I presume your reference on one of the men was a typo as he would have been wounded two years running in August otherwise.

Andy

Andy
10628 Reginald Francis Hamm of Basingstoke enlisted 11/8/14 and went to France 30/5/15. He served in the 5th, 6th, 1st and 1st/4th Royal Berks as he was either accident prone or unlucky - he appears in casualty lists dated 12/2/16, 5/8/16, 7/9/17 and 19/4/18 - he was eventually discharged to Z Reserve 20/4/19 so could not have been badly injured.

36397 Benjamin Mann came to the Royal Berks from the 1st/1st Herts (no 6052) He served in the 6th, 5th and 2nd Royal Berks and I have only one list for him dated 7/9/17

I appreciate what you are doing and I am sure anyone who finds one of 'their men' on one of your lists will be most grateful - but it is a lot of work - its bad enough doing just one regiment but to try the whole British Army???

Can you do us a little bit more explanation of what the lists are - I can understand a hospital admission list - they are quite useful - as are ships manifests - but what is a list headed xxx Record Office? Are your lists complete or just random examples? for example most ships had hundreds of casualties aboard.

regards

John

[PPCLI]

Hi John,

Yes, the information available from local newspapers can be very detailed but can also be quite limiting and variable depending on the type of research you are undertaking.

From my experience of using the main (about 10-12) newspapers which cover my county and the surrounding counties in south-west Scotland, it is quite clear that a non-local serving in the 'county regiment' is highly unlikely to be mentioned in the local press.

With regards to the Berkshire papers, they sound like a tremendous resource wrt publishing lists from all the Royal Berks and Ox and Bucks. None of my local papers published that type of detail for the King's Own Scottish Borderers or Royal Scots Fusiliers, certainly not after 1914.

You queried the 'the value of all this'. I think these lists will be useful for regimental/battalion researchers in finding details of men not likely to be mentioned in the local press either because they are not from the area or that the reason for their inclusion in these lists is not the type of news normally reported at that time - accident and illness. Additionally, quite often the information provided in these lists on the unit in which the man served is more detailed (i.e. company level) than is usually given in local (in my area at least) newspapers.

I just cannot see the point of publishing three names from a list whose source is difficult to ascertain when anyone can go into almost any public library and read newspapers from the period and compile lists at the rate of several hundred an hour.

My point of view is that if you don't know where a man is from, how can you research him in a local paper? If you are researching a regiment/battalion, not every soldier will be from your locality and possibly be mentioned in the local press. Any source that adds to the difficult and time-consuming search for information has to be welcomed. I think that this thread is one of the more useful contributions to the forum.

....its bad enough doing just one regiment

I find it bad enough doing one battalion! I would take my hat off to you but it's too cold today.

All the best,

Stuart

[purley]

Hi Stuart

This is just the most enormous problem. If you are researching just one or two individuals finding almost anything is like looking for a needle in a haystack. What I am trying to do is to to cover the Royal Berks from c1800 to 1920 and men from Berkshire 1914-1920. This gives me the ability to answer queries from all over the world because I can quote all the references that I have come across and indexed. It takes an enormous effort to import lists into a database and then identify the man concerned. Sorry I cant do the KOSB although I do have 19  Berkshire men who served in them.

My point is that it is of more use to build up an index of references from a focussed group than merely quoting about 0.001% of the possible total. If you focus on one regiment or one geographical area you might get that hit rate up to around 10%. I reckon I have identified about 85% of the men who served in the regiment - missing mainly reservists and Territorials who were invalided out in the first two years of the war or joined in 1918

I guess we are fairly lucky in Berkshire as when a man was injured or home on leave the local newshounds paid them a visit and made a story out of it and when a man was killed we often get copies of letters from their CO or pals to their parents and wives. I am sure the Germans reading the Berkshire papers would have gleaned a lot of confidential information.

A few years ago we tried to get researchers to build focussed databases of either a regiment or county but few grasped the enormity of the task. Many transcribed lists from the SDGW and announced they had finished their task but with the N&M CD available most of it has been superseded and their work in vain.

The numbers are enormous - say with 8M men involved and 10 records per man one list of 80 records represents 0.001% ie your chances of finding any individual is about 1 in 100,000. What everyone seems to forget is that on average men had about 2.2 regimental numbers and served in 1.7 regiments and 2.8 battalions but we have found men with up to 10 different numbers and seven regiments

Why am I rabbitting on? - got to go now - is anyone interested in having another database conference?

John

Hi John,

Yes, the information available from local newspapers can be very detailed but can also be quite limiting and variable depending on the type of research you are undertaking.

From my experience of using the main (about 10-12) newspapers which cover my county and the surrounding counties in south-west Scotland, it is quite clear that a non-local serving in the 'county regiment' is highly unlikely to be mentioned in the local press.

With regards to the Berkshire papers, they sound like a tremendous resource wrt publishing lists from all the Royal Berks and Ox and Bucks. None of my local papers published that type of detail for the King's Own Scottish Borderers or Royal Scots Fusiliers, certainly not after 1914.

You queried the 'the value of all this'. I think these lists will be useful for regimental/battalion researchers in finding details of men not likely to be mentioned in the local press either because they are not from the area or that the reason for their inclusion in these lists is not the type of news normally reported at that time - accident and illness. Additionally, quite often the information provided in these lists on the unit in which the man served is more detailed (i.e. company level) than is usually given in local (in my area at least) newspapers.


My point of view is that if you don't know where a man is from, how can you research him in a local paper? If you are researching a regiment/battalion, not every soldier will be from your locality and possibly be mentioned in the local press. Any source that adds to the difficult and time-consuming search for information has to be welcomed. I think that this thread is one of the more useful contributions to the forum.


I find it bad enough doing one battalion! I would take my hat off to you but it's too cold today.

All the best,

Stuart

[Ken Lees]

... is anyone interested in having another database conference?

Me! I'd be very interested in another conference as I found the last one at Knowle very useful.

I'm sure there would be plenty of support from Forum members.

Perhaps a new thread to gauge interest?

Ken

[PPCLI]

Hi John,

I don't mind you rabitting on, it is always good to hear from others carrying out similar research and yes, I would certainly attend another db meeting. Your points all hit the mark and I agree regards the efficiency of working from a small, concentrated set of resources. Since most people's area of research tends to have a personal aspect, it often (but not always) follows that researching their local resources meets all their needs. However, sometimes even the scope of a local project, in my case a territorial battalion, extends way beyond the resources at hand. I'm impressed that you have identified about 85% of the men who served in the Berkshire Regiment. For my single battalion study, all is okay until 1916 when the Derby Scheme kicks in; I would estimate that from 1916 onwards more than 80% (definitely a safe estimate) of the new men have no local connection. Details of these men popping up in unexpected places, like this thread, are a bonus and a big help. [I actually found it easier to identify the men invalided out in the first two years of the war, using SWB rolls at Kew and WO 364 on Ancestry].

I too will stop going on and won't distract from the thread any further, but just wanted to say that these lists do have a use. I agree that they can't be a principal source of information - not that I believe that was ever the intention of the thread starter. However, if the info wasn't posted here it would probably remain unknown to most researchers.

Cheers,

Stuart

[stiletto_33853]

Hi John,
Sounds as though Hamm was, as you say, unlucky or accident prone. To date the lists placed here have helped a few people with their databases and one with a family member. It can be a lot of work, as you say, but if it gives a little more information on someone where there is precious little information available then it will have been worthwhile in my eyes. Did you know what hospital your men went to ???, just wondering if it gave you anything more.

Andy

[purley]

Hi John,
Sounds as though Hamm was, as you say, unlucky or accident prone. To date the lists placed here have helped a few people with their databases and one with a family member. It can be a lot of work, as you say, but if it gives a little more information on someone where there is precious little information available then it will have been worthwhile in my eyes. Did you know what hospital your men went to ???, just wondering if it gave you anything more.

Andy

Thanks Andy - No I did not know what hospitals he went to, nor the nature of any of his wounds and I really am appreciative of your efforts. I reckon this game is a bit like doing a million piece jigsaw puzzle when you hold only about 200 pieces - your chances of getting even two pieces to join are greatly enhanced if yopu pick your pieces from a related pool. I am fortunate in that I have copies of the regimental registers and we had a team of 40 or so volunteers that scoured the National archives for us.

Stuart  gave a positive response to the idea of another database conference - perhaps it could focus on pooling data and establishing a clear focus for each regiment and county. It was suggested last time that it should be in the Birmingham/Banbury area. I have noticed threads asking for people to register their interests, could someone pull all these together in a consistent way that could be shared - This forum might be a good way to make contacts but it is not a good way to distribute bulk data.

What does everyone else think?

regards

John

[stiletto_33853]

Hi John,
Glad that little snippet helped you in a little way, as I am sure you know, every little bit helps build a picture. Very true, sometimes it is a little bit like putting a jigsaw together with lots of pieces missing.
I would certainly be interested in another database conference, the problem that I have with the Rifle Brigade is that there is no territorial boundaries such as some of the county regiments, they came from all over even to begin with. Unfortunately this makes it unlikely I am able to pop around some of the libraries to try and get little snippets of information from local sources.
There are a fair few people on the forum that I regularly exchange information with which helps all parties no end and a godsend sometimes, its getting to know who has an interest in what and where they live, however once you get to know one another I have found it is a great forum for exchanging bulk data and have sent out discs to a fair few people with a large amount of data on them.

All the best

Andy

By the way, any RB men in your area, I am always looking for information on them  

[purley]

[quote  
By the way, any RB men in your area, I am always looking for information on them  
[/quote]

Andy

I have 235 of them in my database - will happily let you have details - send me a message with your e-mail address

John

[stiletto_33853]

John,
Message sent.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

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[PPCLI]

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