russtobin Posted 13 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2020 19 minutes ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said: Death Certificate? Got it and no mention of military. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 13 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2020 Just spoken to CWGC and they have nothing to offer in the way of an explanation at this moment in time. They will however research further and advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sadbrewer Posted 13 July , 2020 Share Posted 13 July , 2020 From The Staffordshire Sentinel, August 30th, 1916. Courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 13 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2020 1 minute ago, sadbrewer said: From The Staffordshire Sentinel, August 30th, 1916. Courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive Thanks for that. I've got lots of information about Percy but not much about his brother Charles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRC Posted 13 July , 2020 Share Posted 13 July , 2020 6 hours ago, russtobin said: Charles Joseph Heaton(269869). Bit of an even longer shot, so you may want to park it for now. In a professional life working with numbers it never ceased to amaze with handwritten sources how often 1,2 & 7 or 6,9 & 8 or 8 & 3, for example were mis-read. And it's not usually just one digit. If someones handwriting is difficult to make out then multiple digits can be mis-read. Thus when I come across a Medal Index Card for a 188369 Joseph Heaton, Royal Field Artillery, I start to wonder. If the memorial was being paid for by the relevant branch of the armed forces then I would suspect it would be checked and the number verified - although even then mistakes occur. But if its being paid for by the family under a direct relationship, then probably less cause for the CWGC to check. That Joseph Heaton only received the British War Medal so presumably in a Garrison posting in a non Theatre of War. His rank is shown as Gunner. Can't see any surviving papers for him, but then it could be the number on the card that is wrong. Apologies if that's a red herring. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 13 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2020 Thanks for that Peter. It's a possibility.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clk Posted 13 July , 2020 Share Posted 13 July , 2020 Hi, I think that 188369 Heaton can be ruled out. FMP have a MH106 record which has him as aged 27 in June 1919. Regards Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 14 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 14 July , 2020 Ah well it was interesting while it lasted. Hopefully the CWGC can shed further light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Bach y Sowldiwr Posted 14 July , 2020 Share Posted 14 July , 2020 Just looking at it from the other direction.. Do you have any reason to believe he wasn't in the army? Do you have any reason to believe he wasn't in the RFA (or possibly ASC). Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 14 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 14 July , 2020 1 hour ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said: Just looking at it from the other direction.. Do you have any reason to believe he wasn't in the army? Do you have any reason to believe he wasn't in the RFA (or possibly ASC). Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I believe he was in the army but probably didn’t serve overseas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Bach y Sowldiwr Posted 14 July , 2020 Share Posted 14 July , 2020 23 minutes ago, russtobin said: I believe he was in the army but probably didn’t serve overseas. Sorry, what I meant was, was there any family information about his service before you started to research? Was there any hint that he had or hadn't been in the Great War? I agree it now looks like he only had home service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 14 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 14 July , 2020 No family information unfortunately - my wife’s mother was orphaned at 5. Neither of the commemorated brothers had family. The only information we have concerning CJ’s military career is what CWGC have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Bach y Sowldiwr Posted 14 July , 2020 Share Posted 14 July , 2020 1 hour ago, russtobin said: No family information unfortunately - my wife’s mother was orphaned at 5. Neither of the commemorated brothers had family. The only information we have concerning CJ’s military career is what CWGC have. OK . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Bach y Sowldiwr Posted 16 July , 2020 Share Posted 16 July , 2020 On 13/07/2020 at 11:01, PRC said: Just gone round and round in circles on the Staffordshire County website, (the two are buried at Milton, Staffordshire which I assume is their hometown), looking for the 1918 or 1919 Absent Voters List. So I contacted Staffordshire Archives.. Dear Dr DByS Please find attached our guide to electoral registers, which is what you may have seen online. Our registers themselves have not been digitised though. I regret that there are no known absent voters lists for Staffordshire. The legislation was permissive not mandatory, and the onus was on the soldiers to submit information, not for the local authority to collect it. Those that are known to have survived relate to the larger towns, I believe, and may have been due to a local election being held, rather than the national one. We have no idea if any were ever compiled for Staffordshire. The 1918 normal electoral register for Staffordshire does include codes for military personnel, and perhaps that is all that was ever produced in this county. People used to ask about these to try to obtain army numbers and regiment details, but this is not as important as it used to be, since the Ancestry website put the medal card indexes online, which contain the same information. Have you tried those? I hope this will be some assistance to you. Yours sincerely, Oh well. And yes I know the last sentence is factually incorrect, but at least they were kind enough to check, and there are none. That's a shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russtobin Posted 16 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 16 July , 2020 Thank you so much for going the extra mile with this one - much appreciated. We've got very little to go on. We don't even possess a photograph from that side of my wife's family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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