Please help a new member !

[Guest Forgotten_soldier]

I have recently joined the forum after coming across this excellent site,my chief interest is the Waffen SS and elite Wermacht divisions in WW2 (don't hold that against me,I don't vote BNP !!),however I am becoming more and more engrossed in WW1 where everything to me is all new and fascinating knowledge.

Anyway,to get to the point,both my great grandfathers fought in WW1 and I have paid a researcher to visit Kew for the one I hoped would be easier to find as I have no numbers or Regts for either.The researcher has sent me through today all surviving service records for a Frederick Shelley,none of which are my grandfather,and medal cards for all the frederick shelley's listed.By checking second initials etc I have whittled it down to 7 remaining cards.

However now i am stuck,as the service records for these seven have seemingly not survived and the medal cards do not give an address.1 likely candidate served in the '5/Essex',as his address was Aveley,Essex this is the most likely.How would I now if this the 1/5 Essex terr.or the 2/5 Essex terr.without the service records ? Also my mum remembers my Great Grandad telling her about the Mannequin Pis in Brussels with great hilarity when she was going there on a school trip,but the 1/5 seem to have gone to the middle east and the 2/5 essex stayed in the UK ?

Another candidate served in the AOC,can anyone kindly advise me what this was ?

Please note I am not expecting anyone to solve this for me or to cause themselves any inconvenience in answering my queries,I also realise i may not get to the bottom of this.What I am asking for is for any kind person to possibly point me in the right direction or offer any hints that helped them in a similar situation.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this post !

[CROONAERT]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

If you have your gt.grandfather's address, you could look him up on the "absent voter's list" (if he was over the age of 21).You'll probably find this in the local library (local to your grandfather's address that is). This should give you his unit and service number.

AOC, by the way, is the Army Ordnance Corps (now part of the Royal Logistical Corps).

Dave.

[Guest Forgotten_soldier]

Dave

Thankyou very much for replying.

By a stroke of good luck two of my great uncles have contacted me tonight as I have been asking around the family recently to advise that F.Shelley was in the artillery,which has further narrowed the search down to just two cards both for F.Shelleys in the RFA.

Thanks to your kind help I can go to my local library and hopefully now confirm which one of the two men is my G.Grandfather and furthermore hopefully find my other g.grandfathers details,an irishman named John Clarke who 'may have been in an irish regiment' !!.I think i would have needed to have spent days at Kew in a possibly fruitless search for this one!,with luck I might now be closer.

Thankyou once again.

[Kate Wills]

Have you tried whittling down the possibilities by entering Frederick Shelley onto the 1901 census? The basic information is free, and would at least give you some faimily / geographical details of all Frederick Shelleys in the land which you could then cross=match against the medal index cards.

[Guest Forgotten_soldier]

Hi Kate,thanks for replying.

I have used the Census site,however I knew the address of my g.grandfather Shelley,the problem I have is that the medal cards do not give addresses only regiment and service number,so the two F.Shelley's I have whittled the search down to i cannot progress with unless my local council have the 1918 absent voters list,which after calls made today looks unlikely,they are calling me on monday with a definite answer !.

I am also checking the local newspaper archive tomorrow just in case they have any info.

To make matters slightly more confused,one card has a lot of info ie RFA 10 reserve brigade and lists the RHA on the medal roll,also has date of entry as 1914 and SWB which i am informed is the silver wound badge,the other has only the medal entitlement and RHA !