Lancers - 1916

[anita_isaacs@hotmail.com]

Thank you for your suggestions which I will try. Sorry to be thick but when you say Casualty Lists do you mean something other than the CWGC site? I know there is a list of men who died in the Great War, which is on Ancestry, so I could definitely try that. As you say, it is case of narrowing down the range of men who could be him.

I have written to Hull City Archives asking them if there are any reports in the local papers of men returning from the war; I could also request a search of the official notices for any wedding announcement. I have the marriage certificate but it says nothing about his army service, just his current occupation.

Another possibility is the spelling of the surname - it is often misspelt as Issacs, though I don't think they made that mistake in the Service records. Harry isn't really a change of name; his father, also Aaron, was known as Harry too. It just seems to be an anglicisation of a Jewish first name. As you say, I'm stuck if he did go by another surname.

[headgardener]

Thank you for your suggestions which I will try. Sorry to be thick but when you say Casualty Lists do you mean something other than the CWGC site? I know there is a list of men who died in the Great War, which is on Ancestry, so I could definitely try that. As you say, it is case of narrowing down the range of men who could be him.

I have written to Hull City Archives asking them if there are any reports in the local papers of men returning from the war; I could also request a search of the official notices for any wedding announcement. I have the marriage certificate but it says nothing about his army service, just his current occupation.

Another possibility is the spelling of the surname - it is often misspelt as Issacs, though I don't think they made that mistake in the Service records. Harry isn't really a change of name; his father, also Aaron, was known as Harry too. It just seems to be an anglicisation of a Jewish first name. As you say, I'm stuck if he did go by another surname.

There were official casualty lists (completely different to CWGC or SDGW) that were published on a very regular basis, could have been weekly, might have been daily, it's not really my area, so I just couldn't tell you for certain. When you look through a local or national newspaper of the time and read a list of the latest casualties, the info came from the official casualty lists. They'd list men by regiment and battalion under a range of headings; 'Killed', 'wounded', 'missing', 'wounded and missing', wounded and missing believed killed', 'previously reported killed, now reported to be POW', etc. As this implies, the same man might be reported several times over a period of several weeks; first as 'killed', then as ''missing believed killed', then as 'previously reported missing believed killed, now reported POW' etc, etc. Try doing a search on this forum, I've certainly come across threads in which they've been discussed.

Just had a very quick look myself and found THIS.

I believe that Hull was the main port for landing the many MANY thousands of POW's who were returned from Germany at the end of the war (it was the easiest to reach from the German North Sea ports). I understand that they arrived over a period from mid-November to about late-December, so I'd say that the chance of finding something specific to your man in a Hull newspaper is virtually nil.

You're just going to have to keep your mind open to all variations of his name and all spellings of his name (Isaac, Isaacs, Issac, Issacs, Isaacks, Issack, etc).

Keep us informed of your progress, especially if something else turns up through the family, or from the back of the photo.