Thank you for that Janice. P Pring is one of the ones that is causing me the most trouble. I have looked at all the P Prings born in England that I could find and also searched our church records for anyone of that name. I found a Sarah Ann Pring (d.1933) buried in the churchyard and unearthed her gravestone last week to find that her husband was John. I know her address in 1933 which was in the parish but can't find her anywhere else so far.
Your Paul definitely sounds promising so I'll have a look for Edgar James and see what I can find. Thanks again.
Here's some of my research into Sarah Ann Pring ...
FreeBMD has death for Sarah Ann Pring in 1933 age 79, equivalent to a birth year around 1854
1911 census has one Sarah Ann Pring, age 56, visiting Henry and Anna Bella Basford, in Market Drayton.
Sarah Ann has a birthplace of Balterley in Staffordshire. Incorrectly indexed as Batterley.
Anna Bella was also born in Balterley and is 52. It turns out that they are sisters.
Working backwards for Anna Bella and Sara Ann, we find them in the 1861 census as Sarah Ann Dean and Anna Bella Dean in Balterley. They are with their unmarried mother Mary Ann Dean and brother John.
By 1881 Mary Anne has married William Simpson and they are living in Shavington. Sarah Ann has taken the Simpson name. Anna Bella has married Henry Basford and they are living in Wistanton.
On the 1881 census, Sarah Ann has a sister Betsy. This sister marries William Hill.
By 1911, William Hill has died and Betsy is living in Nantwich with children Mabel and William, but also a niece, Maud Pring !!!
So Maud, must be the daughter of a sister of Betsy and the only Pring one we know is Sarah Ann Pring.
And Maud is 17, single, and born in Newark, New Jersey.
The 1900 US census, shows John Pring, Sarah Ann and Maud, living in New Jersey. John immigrated in 1888, Sarah Ann immigrated in 1882, they had been married for 8 years, and had one surviving child.
There is a possible New Jersey marriage for John and Sarah Ann, and there are several travel records for journeys to and from New York. (Nothing early enough for their original emigrations).
So, my first thought that P Pring was John and Sarahs son is wrong - they only had one child in 1900 (Maud). I suppose they could have had another child who might have been just old enough to serve in WW1, but Sarah was 56 in 1900 and John was 52 and there is no record of another Pring birth in New Jersey.
But, P Pring could have been Johns son by a previous marriage. More intriguingly, was P Pring an American serviceman which would explain his absence from the British records. I believe that names for the war memorials could be put forward by any local family wishing to commemorate a relative even though that relative had little or no connection with the locality. I did find a 1914-1918 US Draft record for a Robert Pring but could not find out anything more about him. I am aware of spelling mistakes on war memorials, so it is a possibility.
On the 1900 census, John gives his birth details as Dec 1848, England and occupation as Carpenter. There are a few possible John Prings born around that time, but my favourite candidate is the one born in Chipstable. His father is a carpenter and I can't find that John on any census later than 1881. That John also spent some time in Taunton gaol for theft of four chickens in the 1880s which might have been a good reason to emigrate.
Maud Pring stayed in England and married Arthur Barnes Wheaver in 1934, the year after her mother Sarah Ann died. Maud and Arthur had one child who died aged 2. It was Arthurs seecond marriage. There are living descendants from his first marriage, one of which is Mark Wheaver who has his family tree posted on Genes Reunited and genealogy.com. He may able to supply more details of the Pring family.
Derek Paul