Beware Church honours

[Desmond7]

I know there have been posts on the subject of Church Rolls of Honour before but I was looking at an interesting one this morning. I had to go along to see my girl in her Sunday School 'service' but when it was over I was having a good look at the scrolls for WW1 and 2 in the entrance hall.

Both were in parchment form with lovely lettering and appropriate artwork/flags etc.

However, there were several - to me - glaring errors on the WW1 scroll. Two men are listed under the wrong regiments. I know this for a fact.

What amazes me that no-one got the details right at the time. Surely a member of the family or an old comrade would have pointed out the error?

Have pals found similar errors on church memorials. These mistakes really knocked me back and I re-checked my research. I'm right from three different sources. It would make me wary of mistakes on other Church rols of honour.

Having said all that, these scrolls were prominently displayed and lovingly polished and looked after.

des

[Malcolm]

Desmond,

Not only miss-spellings but wrong Regiments is common. Some of the men I researched for Currie had their original Regiments listed say, Royal Scots although they were killed serving in another Regiment. Is seems the committee who made up the rolls got some of the info second or third hand.

In some cases I can only say ' he is one of 25 Joe Soaps killed in the War ' as they don't give units just names. Fortunately the only John Smith was Black Watch and was from Edinburgh. Only two possibles of the 2007 possibles!

I have just finished searching for a T McRorie to find he is T McCrorie despite what is on the RoH.

Aye

Malcolm

[Desmond7]

Malcolm - I think I'll have a word with the Minister and do a little DTP for him on the men on the roll. I've got them all written up already with pics of quite a few of them. He can sort it out with the 'committee'!

[john w.]

Des

Too blooming right they are wrong!!

Beats me but at the time the names could have been nicknames etc.. all sorts.

It is only now that we tend to look at them with a greater degree of accuracy.

The problem you have is the degree to which people are actually interested, I have written to the RBL and the Reverend, and the Parish Council none of who really care that much about the 'updating' that needs to be done.

Getting people to accept responsibility as well is also a major problem, take the fact that updating needs to take place, who will take the responsibility for the updating? what cost will be involved?

NB I call it updating as a diplomatic term in case saying something is wrong doesnt go down too well..

John

[BeppoSapone]

Too blooming right they are wrong!!

War Memorials are most probably wrong too.

I posted something earlier this month about Birkenhead War Memorial, and how many local mens names are missing from it.

[john w.]

Couldnt agree more... Memorials are a living piece of history and need updating in the same way as any other 'document'

But will they ever listen and deal with it.

All I seem to get is .. 'It was a long time ago!'

Give me strength!

John

[crispy]

Reasearches for a book I am writing has shown 16 men "missed", WW1 & WW2 of the remainder (27) several have wrong names, regiments, and ranks etc.

Whilst Harry being Henry, Bert being Albert and so on I could understand but some of the errors are real howlers, in other local villages that have lists of men that went to war but thankfully returned safely, several of these also have massive errors, when in all good faith I have over the years pointed out several to the relevant PCC etc, the usual answer was along the lines that as they were put up years ago "they must be right", how I agree with the comments on this thread regarding the need for "updates" of War Memorials, as those that are in error are not honouring the man (or woman) concerned.

Forty plus years ago I asked a WW1 veteran why everybody called him Colonel, to which he gave me an odd reply, telling me to look in the porch of the local church, his name was one of those which had served but in view of his occupation it came as something of a shock to see that he had been a Lt-Col, asking Walter more questions he told me that he had in fact been a L/Cpl but his rank had been copied out on the Honour Roll as Lt-Col, he and others had pointed out the mistake but due to the fact that it would damage the roll to alter it, for years untill it was "lost" the error was left.

Thinking back to the Colonel I wonder how many other rolls or memorials have had mistakes pointed out but have been left due to additional cost to rectify the situation.

David.

[Desmond7]

David - thanks for that!

It was well worth reading.

Des

[Cliff. Hobson]

I have found several errors on the Rolls of Honour for my home village, do not attach a deal of importance to this just thankful they still exist and are being cared for. One thing I have not been able to ascertain is whether they were compiled, which I believe they were, on the mens enlistment, or at the end of the war.

Some of the Rolls are in a different handwriting and a few of them who are listed at the side of the name as killed are also in different writing and none of those K.I.A. in 1918 are shown thus.

[crispy]

Des, thank you for your kind comments.

Cliff many thanks also to you, as whilst I can now use the excuse of being a muddled pensioner when not clear thinking, I have no excuse for being thick in years gone by, apart of course for being thick.

Untill I read what you had posted it had never occured to me that some of the rolls where in fact written when the men concerned had enlisted, stupid or what!

If that was the case it would account for the errors regarding the mans regiment, which of course in some cases several changes in regiment occured.

As I knew when some of the rolls were written, and several of them who by after the war, it was a real eye-opener to read your contribution, thanks again.

David.

[Nick Cooper]

Too blooming right they are wrong!!

War Memorials are most probably wrong too.

I posted something earlier this month about Birkenhead War Memorial, and how many local mens names are missing from it.

I think we should always work from a position that "secondary sources" such as newspaper reports, war memorials, etc. should be treated with extreme caution. Names are often mis-spelled, units are frequently wrong, etc. It's hardly surprising, since such details as there are were collected on an informal and ad hoc basis, having to rely on the vagueries of the memories of relatives or friends, who couldn't always be counted to know the full facts.

A good example would be that only this week I decided to check the CWGC for the burial details of the 12 crew members of a minesweeper that foundered with the loss of all hands in Bridlignton Bay in March 1915. Working from the contemporary newspaper reports of the inquests and funerals, the first ten were easy to find, but the last two - by the names of "Leeman" and "Mason" initially proved elusive. It wasn't really suprising, though, to discover that they're actually "Leman" and "Mayson"!

Of course, there are those who are quick to ascribe every discrepancy to perceived deficiencies on the part of the CWGC, but in practice and with furthur investigation, it's very rarely so clear-cut. After all, if you have an MIC, Medal Roll, and original record that all agree on the spelling of a surname the CWGC has, we shouldn't be too quick to give too much credence to a local war memorial that says otherwise....

[David Seymour]

I was looking at the headstone of Dvr L Dennis, died 1919, in Saham Toney Churchyard in Norfolk yesterday and that gives his unit as RASC. However, the scroll inside the church gives his unit as RE. Has anyone else come across this type of variation? Can anyone account for the difference? How common is this sort of thing?

Regards,

David

[Nick Cooper]

I was looking at the headstone of Dvr L Dennis, died 1919, in Saham Toney Churchyard in Norfolk yesterday and that gives his unit as RASC. However, the scroll inside the church gives his unit as RE. Has anyone else come across this type of variation? Can anyone account for the difference? How common is this sort of thing?

In different forms, all the time! Generally it's down to a man being in one unit initially, and than transferring to another they died.

[Canadawwi]

Much of what I do involves photographing church, school and other memorial plaques, writing down the names and then trying to look them up.

The names are often wrong, and I can often only find about half of the names. The main problem is that most of the plaques only have an initial and surname, ie. J. Smith, so that leads to the obvious problem.

Another thing I have found is that many men liked to go by their middle name with friends, but the name on the plaque is their first name. So I now look up by surname. However, the surname can be wrong as well.

I keep running spreadsheets on all the plaques I found. Later on when I get a newspaper obituary that says something like "He was a member of St. Andrew's", I'm able to link it up.

The photo attached is the only one I've had 100% success on locating all the names. (St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, King St., Toronto)

[Desmond7]

Great idea. And I wonder if many of those names have cropped up on the forum?

Des

[Canadawwi]

Another interesting thing is that even the newspaper obituaries were often wrong. I'm going through every issue of a Toronto Newspaper from 1914-19 and scanning and collecting each obituary and then looking it up. From the 3,000 I've found so far, there are about 250 names I can't find on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial (this is where Canada's war dead are listed online).

What I do is keep a number of folders on my pc. I move those not found into a "Not found" file for further research. Then I check back in there every so often and try again. Last week I found something that works, and this is all because the newspaper very frequently spelled the names incorrectly. Sometimes the mistake was pretty major, so of course the name cannot today be located on the official list.

At that times the routine was that the casualty lists came in on a wire, and the reporters were sent out to locate the homes of the Toronto men. I know about this routine, because just after Vimy Ridge the newspaper editorial columnist indicated that he had sent a note to Ottawa to complain about the speed at which the relatives received the official telegrams. It seems that in two incidents, two reporters were traumatized because when they arrived at the home to take the obituary, the mothers had no idea that their sons were even injured as they had not yet received a telegram from Ottawa. So there was quite a sad scene.

So the reporters were pretty busy running around to put together all these obituaries, thus they made a lot of mistakes. Plus, the newspaper type was set by hand, with the letters set backwards. After Vimy I found about 40/day, and on average about 15/day for Toronto. Also, very frequently, a man had a small write-up indicating he was missing, or even dead, and then a week later they wrote again indicating that it was all a mistake, and he was not even wounded.

There are so many mistakes, that I now collect even those articles stating that a man was wounded but recovering, because in many occasions a subsequent article a week later would indicate that he was killed in action.

Last week I took another stab at my "Not Found" file and realized that if I just entered the first letter in the surname search, ie. "S" for Smith, and the first letter of the first name, and the year of death, I then received a number of choices, and I was able to spot where the spelling mistake was made and find the soldier's name on the Canadian Virtual Memorial. If this all isn't confusing enough, I sometimes find the name on the Virtual Memorial spelled incorrectly. I've been able to notify them to make the changes in some cases.

Article attached published December 9, 1916.

[Desmond7]

I am 'doing' one town in a similar fashion. Therefore I know how absorbing the process becomes - and frustrating ! Keep up the good work.

Des