Pte George Thomas Wynn (or Wynne) KLR casualty - do I need to tackle CWGC again ?

[davidbohl]

Pte George Thomas Wynn #405666 King's Liverpool CWGC

All his birth, census and child records point to WYNNE, his parents marriage record from BNA attached, a year before his was born.

All his surviving military records are Wynn apart from Soldiers Effects

His widow died as Wynne as well, from Freebmd

Deaths Mar 1945
Wynne	Clara L	64	Liverpool N.

 

Is there anything major that swayed CWGC to commemorate him as Wynn G.T

Thanks

Dave

[ss002d6252]

29 minutes ago, davidbohl said:

All his surviving military records are Wynn apart from Soldiers Effects

They would have likely just gone off what was on the data provided to them via the military.

Craig

[Matlock1418]

1 hour ago, davidbohl said:

Is there anything major that swayed CWGC to commemorate him as Wynn G.T

Probably it was his military records.

However it looks like they also probably had a returned NoK Verification Form to get the Additional Info details they have against his name [NoK VF sadly now lost - most deliberately destroyed for the WW2 war effort] and it seems that that it didn't dissuade them from using 'Wynn'. 

It certainly looks like there was a disconnect between his family surname and what the military ended up calling him - an alias as Wynn, accidental or deliberate I'm not sure we can say now [?] - and if accidental then not very likely that a Private would contradict the Army!  Nor perhaps would his grieving widow shortly after after his death or a few years later - wouldn't want to slow down the finance, pension etc. with five children to look after.  Either way society was quite deferential in those times.

CWGC do rather seem to like to go with "what was good enough then is good enough now" and like 'served as' names [as matching with any military records and help those searching from that angle] but this 'served as' route might be an angle that you could use = that they might have a simplified entry as: 'Wynn' "Alias - True family name Wynne" and also have a new: 'Wynne' - "Served as Wynn" full commemoration with the family details.  Not that uncommon a way of dealing with differences in name - allows searches from either direction.

If it was my case I'd give it a go - backed up by all the info of course [handy to have his own family details and signature on the 1911 Census].  Good luck.

:-) M

[davidbohl]

30 minutes ago, Matlock1418 said:

Good luck

Thanks everybody, I doubt if they will redo the panel, they've always said to me it requires their family intervention.

I hope they can change the "Additional Information" to reflect the hard evidence that he was Wynne.

Even his daughter Ruth is an further example, from Anc

Thanks

Dave

 

 

Edited 25 July , 2021 by davidbohl

[Matlock1418]

4 minutes ago, davidbohl said:

I hope they can change the "Additional Information" to reflect the hard evidence that he was Wynne.

If you can - Try to get two names/commemorations as I don't think searches under Wynne will pick up on it from the Additional Info.

:-) M

[PRC]

Dave,

A little while back I came across a report in a local daily contemporary newspaper of a fatal air accident involving a French Canadian pupil and the officer who was training him. I suspected there was no local connection to Norfolk - even the crash occurred elsewhere, so it was probably a column filler. Just in case I did a bit of delving. I struggled to find officer and cadet on CWGC, even just using a calculated date only as the search criteria, (something like a Saturday newspaper reporting a Thursday inquest on a crash on the Wednesday).

I was beginning to think I was onto two non-comms - both men appeared in the GRO register of death in the right quarter, with the same name spelling as the report on the inquest.

Turning to the Canadian records I found a service record for the cadet. Same spelling of forenames and surnames as the newspaper report, but death occurred a week earlier - it really was a column filler. The officer then turned up straight away on CWGC, and while the names of the air cadet wasn't quite an anagram, shall we say you'd have been luckly to find him even with a wild card search.

I went on to find his appearance in a baptismal roll and two Canadian censuses - same spelling as every other record.

Checking out the grave registration on the CWGC webpage, even that showed the same spelling as the Canadian mililtary, the Canadian civil record, and the English & Welsh civil records.

Earlier this year I wrote all this with evidence to the CWGC and asked if it was another error that had occurred when their records were put online. I had a very nice response that in this case, having checked the original correspondence, this was the spelling that the parents had requested their son be remembered by, and that it was CWGC policy to respect the families wishes in such matters.

Cheers,
Peter

[davidbohl]

As ever Peter, good digging, hope my chap has some original correspondence to clear this one up.

Even the Weekly Casualty List has him as Wynne, there must be a piece of paper somewhere that clinches it.

from the BNA

[AndrewSid]

I recently wrote to the CWGC about a great uncle who was recorded on their  website with a random incorrect regiment. Headstone was correct.  I attached a few pieces of evidence (medal roll, pension  etc) and they were very quick to admit some sort of mistake and changed the regiment quite quickly. Yours is more complex granted.