"Unknown." (One for Terry Denham)

[Guest Simon Bull]

I have been wondering in the last few days how much information the CWGC holds about the "unknowns" whose names appear on the memorials to the missing, and, for example, whose names appear on the gravestones one sometimes sees in cemeteries saying that Fred Bloggs "is known to be buried in this cemetery".

For example:

(1) Does the CWGC keep any records of searches that may have been made for the body of a particular soldier when his remains were believed to have been at a particular location but were never discovered? I have in mind that they may have had records handed to them indicating that Bert Jones was buried at point X. and searched and found that they could not find Bert Jones.

(2) Will there be in the CWGC archives information which will indicate why Fred Bloggs (who has a gravestone saying that he "is known to be buried in this cemetery") is believed to be buried in a particular cemetery?

(3) If Bill Smith is known to have been buried at a particular location but his grave was then lost (for example, because the area was destroyed by shellfire) will theCWGC have records indicating the original location of Bill Smith's grave.

(4) In general terms if Robert Williams has his name on the Thiepval Memorial what records will the CWGC hold about him?

There are many other variations on this theme but I hope the general nature of my inquiry is clear.

[Terry Denham]

Simon

First you have to remember that the records are not CWGC records in origin. They are army records handed over to CWGC when a particular cemetery was 'completed' and then transferred to Commission care.

CWGC still hold the surviving burial returns etc. On these, I have seen only minimal notes about 'Unknowns'. There may be more extensive notes regarding those to whom Special Memorials are erected (ie those 'Believed to be buried in this cemetery' etc).

There will be no hard and fast rule about what is annotated on the records and they will undoubtedly vary if you were to look at them all.

Also, these documents are working papers as far as CWGC is concerned and are not generally available to the public - although CWGC will usually respond to specific questions when time permits but providing a research service is not part of their remit.

The documents are currently being filmed for internal use over a period of several years and are, therefore, not always available. The purpose is to preserve the original documents which are suffereing from daily use. I understand that there are no plans at present for these copies to be made available to researchers but who knows what could happen in future.

[Paul Reed]

I thought I read a CWGC press release a while back Terry saying they intended to put all the burial returns on-line? Is this not going to happen now?

[Terry Denham]

Paul

I have been told that the press story emanated from a source other than CWGC and they had got hold of the wrong end of the stick about the end use of the copies.

My informant (who knows) suggested that CWGC were less than pleased with this erroneous story.

The initial purpose is internal use only.

[Paul Reed]

Thanks for clarifying that for us Terry.

[Terry Denham]

To expand further...

Putting such a resource on-line would be expensive and possibly not be allowed under CWGC's Charter.

The Charter does not require them to provide a research facility and doing so could be deemed a misuse of their funds unless it could be sensibly construed as assisting in the maintenance of the cemeteries etc - their core business.

They are obliged under the Charter to maintain lists of the names of the Commonwealth war dead from both world wars and civilians from WW2 and so the current Roll of Honour website is covered by the Charter - as it replaces the old printed registers.

It is undeniable that these other records would be of tremendous interest to researchers such as ourselves but questions of finance etc would have to be overcome before such access was made available. One day these hurdles may be overcome.

[Guest Simon Bull]

Thanks for your help Terry. I thought that you would be the one who would know.

Such a pity that researchers cannot get at these documents, although I understand the reasons.

[Guest geoff501]

I have a related question about the CWGC database, perhaps Terry can help.

This entry:

http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/casualty_...asualty=1499024

gives the county in the additional information field as Hereford and Worcester.

How did this happen, since this county only existed from the early 70's, I believe. Has a next of kin supplied info since the boundary change or is this the data held by MOD when the records were transferred. It is odd that the county is not given as Worcs., as is the usual case.

When did the MOD collect this additional information ?

[Terry Denham]

Geoff

You will occasionally see such anachronistic wording in the 'Additional Information' field but it is not common. Often it will be the appearance of a modern country name (eg Zimbabwe etc).

The 'Add Info' was supplied by the next-of-kin on Final Verification Forms after both wars. Those for WW1 no longer exist.

However, CWGC has added itself snippets of information to some records where they are of particular note (eg First man to die on Western Front etc).

Sometimes, other information has been added through communication with relatives or other authorities and their practice in these cases is to add the info 'as it comes'. Therefore, it can contain modern names because they were applicable at the time the info was supplied.

CWGC does not add information willy-nilly and usually only does so at the request of relatives and with official documentary proof. It's records are designed for the identification of a casualty and the identification of their place of commemoration - and are not a biography or primarily a research document.

As a matter of interest, when it comes to UK counties, CWGC use the county names/boundaries as they existed in 1960 for the location of UK cemeteries. This was the time of the publication of most of their WW2 cemetery registers and they stick by this classification (with three or four exceptions for internal reasons).

[Guest geoff501]

You will occasionally see such anachronistic wording in the 'Additional Information'

Terry,

Thanks for this.