Jonathan_NW Posted 12 August , 2009 Share Posted 12 August , 2009 Hi all Apologies if this appears a dumb question. Is there any type of equivilant of SDGW for members of the Mercantile Marine? I am researching the 118 men listed on the Aspull war memorial which is near Wigan in Lancashire. I have identified 108 of the men but 10 remain a mystery. I have searched through SDGW, the CWGC, the war records on Ancestry and Findmypast, find a grave, Australian and Canadian archives and all to no avail. The only service arm I have not really been able to research is the Mercantile Marine. The 10 men are: Walter Bentley J.J Cox W. Donachue L.Gillott George Hillman J.R.S Jones J. Kelley J.Muldoon J. Wilkinson R. Wynne I've never posted in the Naval section before so again I apologise if my question is a daft one! Thanks for reading Jonathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrecktec Posted 12 August , 2009 Share Posted 12 August , 2009 Hello Jonathan I have a database containing all of the British and Commonwealth MM seamen who died in the Great War, but your men are not on the list, however if they are American, they will not be on it? When were they killed or lost and what vessel/s. Cheers Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Lowrey Posted 12 August , 2009 Share Posted 12 August , 2009 Jonathan, One possibility would be some sort of ship loss with casuaties that didn’t qualify for CWGC commemoration. Certain missing vessels would be a possibility as would those killed collisions and other non-war related cases. Best wishes, Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan_NW Posted 13 August , 2009 Author Share Posted 13 August , 2009 Thanks Ron and Michael for taking the time to answer my question. It looks like it's back to the drawing board in how to trace these men! Regards Jonathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoMH Posted 13 August , 2009 Share Posted 13 August , 2009 Hi Jonathan, I've recently started researching a post-war event, and came up with this Merchant Navy Association which has a forum. I found this through red duster which has a list of links under the page title 'Chart Room'. Joanna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1RGLI Posted 13 August , 2009 Share Posted 13 August , 2009 It is also not unusual for the CWGC to have either the details wrong so hard to find or they are simply not yet commemorated (a case file will need to be sent to them to look at thier possible qualification). This is certainly the case with some WW1 Soldiers, so not impossible for the Mercantile Marine. email them is what I would do, they will respond eventually... all the best, Mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoMH Posted 13 August , 2009 Share Posted 13 August , 2009 Mercantile Marine website. If you don't know about this already, there may be some knowledgeable people there who can help. I got a very quick response, having registered for free and posted a question today. Joanna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
per ardua per mare per terram Posted 14 August , 2009 Share Posted 14 August , 2009 Jonathan Are the men you're interested in commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan_NW Posted 14 August , 2009 Author Share Posted 14 August , 2009 The honest answer to that question is I don't know! I have only just turned towards the possibility that they might have served with the Mercantile Marine recently and to be honest I'm not all that clued up on the subject. If they were on the Tower Hill Memorial would they not appear on the CWGC database? Regards Jonathan Jonathan Are the men you're interested in commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted 15 August , 2009 Share Posted 15 August , 2009 Jonathan, That is a long list of missing men for one memorial. Just having sampled a few of the names, all came up as possibles on CWGC. Then I did a bit of playing about. eg, If you put in Bentley,w,Unknown,-----,Unknown,United kingdom. in the search boxes, 44 variations of W.Bentley come up, narrow this downto WW1 casualties and 34 names come up. but if you put unknown in the year of death "to" box, none come up. Maybe you have checked out all the men on CWGC search results allready, and this is of no help at all. But maybe it is something to check. If you want to search the names of the men on the Tower Hill memorial, this can be done on the CWGC site, by following these simple steps. On the CWGC Search page select cemeteries in the first box. The page will update and display a smaller window with two boxes. In the lower box adjacent Cemetery, input Tower Hill memorial. The results page will appear with only one Record Showing, Tower Hill Memorial. Click on Tower Hill Memorial, underneath Cemetery Name. The Cemetery Detaila page opens. Goto bottom of page and click on the Box Cemetery reports. This opens into the list of MN casualties. Browsing through the names is easy from here. Having said that not everyone notices the three little dots at the end of the goto page numbers, (below table on names), clicking on these dots advances the results 10 pages. I have spelt out the method very simply, which hopefully will be understandable by all. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan_NW Posted 17 August , 2009 Author Share Posted 17 August , 2009 Alan Thanks for the advice. I have searched the memorial and they are not there either. I will go away and have a think about this one on where to look for them next! Best wishes Jonathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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