Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 21 June , 2014 Share Posted 21 June , 2014 I suffer from stress-induced migraine (though not pre-attack aura, thankfully). My grandfather's entry in Lives of The First World War is badly flawed. Right at the beginning; the info taken from the mic. That's it. Thanks, - Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, really, that's it. That's as far as I've got before I've been overcome with the onset of throbbing, a pain developing across the front of my forehead, and a really intense feeling that I should throttle somebody, preferably somebody from the IWM. - At that point I have to stop. Its happened three times now. Can anybody point me to the guide for technophobes ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 22 June , 2014 Share Posted 22 June , 2014 Easiest if we can talk you through it. Link to the relevant story, and explain here what is wrong with the information, and between us we'll be able to talk you through the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 22 June , 2014 Share Posted 22 June , 2014 Same here, Tom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaroleHope Posted 22 June , 2014 Share Posted 22 June , 2014 It's all too common. A new book providing biographical details of dozens of men killed in the Great War from the vicinity of where the author lives has got basic errors in the entry for the chap I am interested in. Carole Hope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatherC Posted 22 June , 2014 Share Posted 22 June , 2014 Tom as David said, link us to the "LIfe" and tell us what's wrong with the data. The index has been built up mainly from medal index cards and we all know how variable they can be so it's no surprose that the index isn't perfect. However changing details really isn't hard once you get the hang of it. Several of us here would be happy to help. Quite stress free Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norrette Posted 23 June , 2014 Share Posted 23 June , 2014 I think what's confusing with the site, is the 'pencils' that appear beside the boxes in the 'Known Facts' section. It gives the impression to the new user that to click on these will allow you to enter the data - when really data entry (whether changes or new) is through the 'Add to life story' section. What these pencils are for....I've yet to discover. The premise that the site insists on all information being backed up by evidence is incorrect. By mistake I managed to enter an awful lot of unsupported data to the soldier's photograph I uploaded, by just clicking on 'add facts to this evidence'. So their use of this strange design is a waste of time. Far better if they were to include a field by each piece of information which required a link (external or internal) to each piece of information evidence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 23 June , 2014 Author Share Posted 23 June , 2014 Easiest if we can talk you through it. Link to the relevant story, and explain here what is wrong with the information, and between us we'll be able to talk you through the process. This is as far as I've got > HERE < So I have created a link to what I assume to an editable page relating to my grandfather. IWM show him as 632020 Labour Corps - he's turning in his grave Here's his mic > No - seems that being able to post an image has now been turned off as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 23 June , 2014 Share Posted 23 June , 2014 Well, like it or not, those were his last service details... Never-the-less the workaround is to add a "known at" date for his Cameron Highlanders service, so make sure you are logged in, then: Click on Medal Index Card in the evidence list, then Click on Add Facts from this Evidence, then On the right, scroll down to the Military Service section, and click on Unit and Rank, then At the top right, under Improve an Existing Unit & Rank, click on Units: British Army Cameron Highlanders and 1944 -, then Put a date in the Known At: field - his date of entry into France, 19 February 1915, is as good as any, then Click Continue, then Click Save These Facts You may need to refresh the page for the life story, but after that, it should show his details as Cameron Highlanders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 23 June , 2014 Author Share Posted 23 June , 2014 Well, like it or not, those were his last service details... Ok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 23 June , 2014 Author Share Posted 23 June , 2014 I can see that this is probably going to end in (almost certainly pointless, as they hardly ever reply) correspondence to the IWM - but anyway - my grandfather's mic shows two regimental numbers, but he had three - two with the QOCHs and finallythe LC one. He was allocated the 2nd QOCH number when he transferred from 1/4th QOCHs to 1st QOCHs 12/9/16 - up till 1918 when he was transferred to the LC after recovering from the wounding he took at Passchendaele in November 1917. All of this is documented in the 1/4th Bn "Casualty Book" at the regimental archives at Fort George in Inverness-shire. I have folders of information about his war service; postcards written by him; correspondence; information in regimental journals; photographs of him; his military bible, etc etc etc etc etc etc. My grandfather was born and lived in a long-since demolished "crinkly tin house" in the middle of nowhere in the highlands of Scotland. He did not have a conventional family background in terms of certification. Tracking down his family and birth information was a nightmare. I don't think any of it "qualifies" as the linkable official proof that IWM demands. So two things then - firstly the IWM scheme is beginning to look to me like something which has fallen out of a dog's backside. Secondly; I'm not impressed by snide remarks about my grandfather or his war service. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 24 June , 2014 Share Posted 24 June , 2014 Sorry, it wasn't intended to be snide, just a comment on the way the regimental structure (and associated loyalties) of the British Army complicates problems like this (presumably his BWM and Victory are also named with his Labour Corps service?). IWM can only work with the data that exists, which as we know is far from complete (largely due to the destruction of the service records), this project should help fill in some of the gaps, by bringing together the various sources that do still exist - the regimental casualty book is a perfect example and certainly would be an acceptable source. Since it is in the regimental archives, prsumably it has some sort of catalogue or accession reference? All that's really necessary is that it is a source that someone else who is so minded could go and check for themselves. For family material, this is why they offer the facility to upload scans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatherC Posted 24 June , 2014 Share Posted 24 June , 2014 Tom. With respect, if the original MIC is wrong then I'm not sure how you can blame IWM for that? Their point on requiring verifiable sources is that if you add information to Lives, it has to be accessible to others who wish to see the source of the facts. Otherwise you end up with the farcical situation we find on Ancestry where people are listed in the census after their death and all that kind of rubbish becasue people can upload stuff with no verifiable source. For your grandfather it actually sounds to me like you do indeed have the information required to amend the details. If the casualty book you mention is held in an external archive then that's fine as a source. Add it as an external reference under the "book/publication/archive" option and as long as anyone who went to the archive could view it you can add the facts from it. As far as your other information, such as photos, letters and diaries are concerned, scan the relevant bits and upload them and then you can again add facts from them. I realise this may be time-consuming but surely you can see the point of not allowing people to just add stuff with no evidence? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawryleslie Posted 3 July , 2014 Share Posted 3 July , 2014 I suffer from stress-induced migraine (though not pre-attack aura, thankfully). My grandfather's entry in Lives of The First World War is badly flawed. Right at the beginning; the info taken from the mic. That's it. Thanks, - Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, really, that's it. That's as far as I've got before I've been overcome with the onset of throbbing, a pain developing across the front of my forehead, and a really intense feeling that I should throttle somebody, preferably somebody from the IWM. - At that point I have to stop. Its happened three times now. Can anybody point me to the guide for technophobes ? Tom, I am new to this forum but have extensive experience in researching my own Grandfather and other soldiers killed in WW1. This may be too simplistic but have you tried looking at your grandfathers MIC on Military Records on Ancestry.com? If you do not have access to this wonderful resource, if you PM your Grandfather's name, rank and regimental number and your email address I may be able to help you with the original MIC and his military records if they still exist. Personally I have found about 95% of queries I have done on Ancestry.com, regarding WW1 soldiers, to have produced documents and other information. sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatherC Posted 3 July , 2014 Share Posted 3 July , 2014 Lawryleslie - Tom's issue isn't that he does not have the information - he clearly has. His issue is that he can't overcome the problems he is having with the LFWW interface to get the information onto their site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 3 July , 2014 Share Posted 3 July , 2014 sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs. Lawryleslie, just for your info: Tom is one of the most accomplished professional military researchers on the planet. Finding stuff is not the problem here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawryleslie Posted 3 July , 2014 Share Posted 3 July , 2014 Oops said I was new to the forum guys. Sorry to offend just trying to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Wilcock Posted 4 July , 2014 Share Posted 4 July , 2014 I think there is a problem. People who may have researched an individual are finding it is difficult and time consuming to enter that information. And it is not entirely clear what the IWM would like one to do with the info one has. As the family historian, I may have information about,say, 40 men who served in WW1. Half a dozen of these I may have investigated more closely. An example is Richard Thomas Birch. In 2002 OH and I who speak French drove his brother and sister in law to Albert to visit the place where her Uncle Richard Thomas Birch had been killed. The trip was made on behalf of the frail and elderly sister of the man killed. OH and I went to Kew and found out as much as we could about the military service of this uncle, and I wedded that to what his family knew, his birthday etc. We looked at the war diary to find where he disappeared. And went to Mouquet farm. But this was not academic work and I did not make detailed notes of my sources. There is already quite full information about Richard Thomas Birch on the CWGC site and also what in those days I called his army file, which I can now see on line at ancestry. I found two census entries for him. I have a picture of this man on my computer, given me by the family. But I cant prove it is him. So one could say that what I have might be typical of many families in the UK. But putting up his details is problematic. First, it seems (I think) one is warned not to use CWGC info as a source; Does this mean one must delay date of death and burial and names of parents until the cwgc indexes are linked to this project? Then the project would like me to link his Service Record which survives. British Army WWI Service Record, 1914-1920 for Richard Thomas Birch with an ancestry link which comes out unconvincingly http://interactive.ancestry.co.uk/1219/miuk1914e_124954-00074/161388?backurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ancestry.co.uk%2fcgi-bin%2fsse.dll%3findiv%3d1%26db%3dBritishArmyService%26rank%3d1%26new%3d1%26MSAV%3d1%26gss%3dangs-d%26gsfn%3drichard%2bt%26gsfn_x%3dNP_NN%26gsln%3dbirch%26gsln_x%3dXO%26msbdy%3d1896%26msbpn__ftp%3dKent%252c%2bEngland%26msbpn%3d5270%26msbpn_PInfo%3d7-%257c0%257c0%257c3257%257c3251%257c0%257c0%257c0%257c5270%257c0%257c0%257c%26dbOnly%3d_F8007A65%257c_F8007A65_x%252c_F0007CF4%257c_F0007CF4_x%252c_F0007E0C%257c_F0007E0C_x%26uidh%3dz8t%26msbdp%3d1%26pcat%3dMIL_DRAFT%26fh%3d12%26h%3d161388%26recoff%3d%26ml_rpos%3d13&ssrc=&backlabel=ReturnRecord This Service record gives more details of his unit. It shows he was in the 2/1 Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles which makes sense as he was a waggoner working with horses on a farm. Then he was transferred to 4th and then 7th East Kent - these facts being a mystery to me. But CWGC say he died in 7th Bttn. The service record also shows that on 18 June 1915 he was 22 years and 91 days old. I suspect that the IWM want me to go to the PRO catalogue and get the file reference for this service record. His birth index reference is Richard Thomas Birch Registration Year: 1893 Registration Quarter: Apr-May-Jun Registration district: Eastry Parishes for this Registration District: View Ecclesiastical Parishes associated with this Registration District Inferred County: Kent Volume: 2a Page: 94 The 1901 census record for his family is Class: RG13; Piece: 819; Folio: 31; Page: 12. The 1911 census record for his family is RG14-04-3-60-04360_0215_03 The question is what the IWM want me and other family historians to do with the rag bag of information we may have collected. Putting up all these official sources may just duplicate what is already neatly on the CWGC site. And so needlessly consume my time. Yet one should at least signify that one has information. And that in 2002 a surviving family still remembered and felt so deeply about Richard Birch that they wanted to see where he went missing and to look for his name on the Thiepval memorial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatherC Posted 4 July , 2014 Share Posted 4 July , 2014 (edited) I'm not aware that you can't use CWGC as an external source - I certainly have. I think the only caveat was what will happen if the CWGC data is then used as seed data - will we get a load of double entries. I haven't let that stop me! I know the Ancestry links look weird. It doesn't matter. Use them. No-one expects you to get the PRO reference, although since their catalogue is online and easy to search it's quite possible to do it that way too. I just clicked on your link and indeed it takes me straight to his service record so it does work For the birth entry, 1911 and 1901 again use the Ancestry links if you have them. If not enter them as external sources and choose the document option rather than the website one. You can upload the photo and use the reason "photo comes from family collection". As you say that's the best evidence most of us have and it seems to be quite acceptable. As for the story about going to see his grave, this to me is exactly what the site is all about and you can add it as personal recollection. I do agree the interface is not the most user-friendly thing out there. It looks deceptively simple to add info but it's not, due to silly things like the "pencils" on the front page which we all click on only to find they do nothing and the requirement to add source first and details second, which while it makes sense, is the opposite of what most people are used to from Ancestry. I do sympathise with the point that it takes time to do and that some of that time is indeed spent in working out how to use the damn thing rather than in entering data. Howevere this has the potential to be SO much more than just the bare facts that CWGC has. Please persevere? Edited 4 July , 2014 by HeatherC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 4 July , 2014 Share Posted 4 July , 2014 It's nigh-on impossible to get a usable TNA ref for an other ranks service record. The Ancestry link is fine, someone will probably ultimately link it to the FindMyPast version of the same thing too. The more sources the better, sometimes they build on each other, and it's only the overall collection which allows the full picture to be seen, and the link to an individual made clear. At other times there may well be internal contradictions where people have fibbed about their age or where they were originally from, for a variety of reasons, and again it's only by having the full set that these thigns can be teased out and understood. You don't have to add everything in one go, and the chances are that there will other projects (those reaerchign local war memorials and the like) will come along and add sourcs you didn't even know about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Wilcock Posted 5 July , 2014 Share Posted 5 July , 2014 Thank you both - I think I've got it, David. It is the sources which are the heart of the matter. That is why adding sources takes priority on the site. What the IWM want is for us to link the medal cards with any sources we already have on our family trees. I can manage that. Typing in a lot of personal info drawn from those sources and memorialising the people is an optional extra. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Wilcock Posted 6 July , 2014 Share Posted 6 July , 2014 I have now added 6 sources and my photograph to Richard Thomas Birch. He now has his forenames. Yes, I had two problems. The first is that I enter a census source, and would like to enter the next census source in the same way, keeping a consistent style. However, one cannot enter a new source while still viewing one's previous entry - my memory is decaying in old age and I really need to see what I have entered - and to make matters worse, once entered, one is unable to edit one's sources. I had to delete the 1911 census entry and then re-enter it to try to get some consistency with the manner in which I had entered 1901. I also found it extremely annoying that I had to enter so many compulsory fields, which merely repeated the information already given. And tidying up a census entry the second time round, I found myself just copying and pasting to fill the required fields. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 6 July , 2014 Share Posted 6 July , 2014 There are usability issues - I know the issue of being able to edit the details of references is one that has been raised repeatedly, and is now shown as planned work http://support.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/forums/239242-improvement-ideas/suggestions/5689909-source-citations-need-to-be-editable and http://support.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/forums/239242-improvement-ideas/suggestions/5866528-amend-where-a-source-of-information-comes-from-onc. Issues are being addressed having been raised on the support forums, so do take things up there (the more specific the better, though it's usually best to describe the outcome you want rather than trying to suggest a specific way of achieving that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Wilcock Posted 6 July , 2014 Share Posted 6 July , 2014 David, Thank you. I did report it on the forum for the Lives Site too. Tho probably in the wrong place. You may be proud of me because I have gone through my husband's trees this afternoon and, entirely thanks to you, I have put in 1911 census records, some other records too and pictures for the people in his family who his parents really cared about. The Lives website reveals I have done eight people today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Wilcock Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 Continuing through my age group of men, I have a skewed experience. The dead are easy to find. The survivors are not. Say I find a family of cousins - four young men not personally known to our branch of the surviving family. I can identify the record card for the one son who was killed and who I already knew was listed on the CWGC site. The others no. Even among my husband's uncles - surname Haigh -, I cant select the correct medal card for those who were not killed. Nor tell whether they served or not, and if not whether that was for medical reasons. Some of the surnames are common, and some combinations of forename and surname are frequent in a particular town or village, and thus in some regiments. Unless we know they served or know their service number,or a service record survives my results from searching for men on the family trees who survived the war met with even less success than when I was attempting to identify men whose names were on the lists for 4th South Midland Brigade TF or who were listed in the Brigade 240*** medal index book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 Indeed, but of course this is down to the surviving information rather than any fault of the site: anyone who has done research will have had this experience. I have fairly full information on my great-great-uncle who died (see signature block of this post), but another one where there are family recollections of him serving in the artillery in Mesopotamia I've not been able to tie to any official record. However, it is also why the crowdsourcing approach is so valuable: as other people investigate other sources these gaps should be narrowed via things like local newspapers, parish magazines etc, as the detail in them allows the candidates to be thinned out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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