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Cant see wood for trees, help please?

  • Thread starter Thread starter llamafarmer
  • Start date Start date
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llamafarmer

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After 18 months of sifting through ancestry files i finally found my great grandfathers service records, blinkin transcription errors! anyway an eye opener they were. In amongst them was a letter from my great grandad requesting time off because in the space of a few months he had lost all five brothers and his mother as well as suffering chronic rheumatism caused by trench conditions. His request fell on deaf ears.

Can someone help me find the army service records or CWGC records of his brothers please? Similar to looking for great grandad every time i look on ancestry it gives me about a million results i dont want, maybe a fresh set of eyes may come up trumps.

All brothers were born in Birmingham so Im guessing they all joined the Royal Warwickshires or the Worcestershire Reg...Im looking for....

Frederick Smith born 1876
Thomas (Tom) Smith born 1880
Walter Smith born 1886
Edward Smith born 1888
Arthur Smith born 1890

I also have a question... if you died at the front would you also be listed in the BMD or just in the CWGC records? Hope someone can help, would be nice to pay my respects eventually
 
I also have a question... if you died at the front would you also be listed in the BMD or just in the CWGC records?

Just done a check on my step grandfather who was killed in WW1. He is not on any bmd records so I would guess in the CWGC records only.

Terry
 
BMD registers are only for Birth, Marriage and Death events in this country, in the particular areas where they happened.
 
You need to give more details - 1901 and 1911 census. Medal cards. 213 Smiths were killed in the Warwicks in the First World War.
 
The deaths were registered by the GRO BUT there is a separate list for overseas deaths. This is not included in the GRO lists covered by FreeBMD. You can however browse the overseas lists if you have a subscription to findmypast.
 
thanks chris, i finally found my great grandad - the transcription provided by ancestry listed the wrong regimental number... i found him in the wee small hours, after about 6 hours searching. Thnakfully his service record was intact and transcribed with 40 pages of info including a letter written by him requesting an extension to his compassionate leave... i found that his 5 brothers were all killed in WW1 - something that i never knew before, now busy trying to locate his brothers using the same method on ancestry which again is proving difficult, i will perecevere and let you know how i get on... thanks for everyones help
 
ps... whats a furlough or furlough leave? is it compasssionate leave? I also found in a letter he mentioned he re-enlisted into the royal warwicks aug 17 1914... where would i find his previous military service details, they arent included in the ancestry transcription
 
Furlough is ordinary leave.

Usually, papers relating to any previous military service would have been brought into his file after re-enlisting. The records you see on Ancestry (quite apart from any fire damage) had been thinned out by "weeding" in the 1930's, so his pre-1914 papers have almost certainly been binned.

It might be worth looking in the WO97 collection at the National Archives (papers of men discharged up to 1913). Theoretically he should not be in there, but I have found one or two over the years.
 
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