CWGC Double entry burials

[David Seymour]

I have just come across a very curious double entry on the CWGC website for someone for 1945 and wondered if any one has come across a similar phenomenon for 1914 – 1918. John Henry Poore died on 8/5/45 and appears to have been buried in two places. What can it mean? See below.

Many thanks for any help.

David

1 POORE, JOHN HENRY

Civilian 08/05/1945 60 Civilian War Dead

United Kingdom PADDINGTON, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

2 POORE, JOHN HENRY

Civilian 08/05/1945 60 Civilian War Dead

United Kingdom ST. MARYLEBONE, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

1

Name: POORE, JOHN HENRY

Initials: J H

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Civilian

Regiment: Civilian War Dead

Age: 60

Date of Death: 08/05/1945

Additional information: London Auxiliary Ambulance Service. Husband of J. A. Poore, of 25 Lanark Road, Maida Vale. Injured 11 May 1941, at St. Marylebone; died at 25 Lanark Road.

Casualty Type: Civilian War Dead

Cemetery: PADDINGTON, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

Name: POORE, JOHN HENRY

Initials: J H

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Civilian

Regiment: Civilian War Dead

Age: 60

Date of Death: 08/05/1945

Additional information: London Auxiliary Ambulance Service. Husband of J. A. Poore, of 25 Lanark Road, Maida Vale. Injured 11 May 1941, at St. Marylebone; died at 25 Lanark Road.

Casualty Type: Civilian War Dead

Cemetery: ST. MARYLEBONE, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

[gem22]

David

One possible answer is that this is one cemetery with two names. The two boroughs are adjacent and if you look on a map of the area you can see a cemetery between Lord's Cricket ground and regents Park. I suspect this is the cemetery you are looking for

Garth

[TD60]

Civilian died may the 8th 1945... the V day .

That is also curious especialy for a civilian.

Died of wounds month after being injuried ?

Accident with military connection ?

Poor man .... sad destiny.

Some details on his death circumstances are known ?

Hum... I should have seen the comments above. !

4 years between injury and death !

He wanted to live at least until the victory day.

Regards

[David Seymour]

Garth,

Thanks. That's an interesting idea. So, I looked round the web and found: "The Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone was a metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1899 and 1965 when it was merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington and the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster to form the London Borough of Westminster.". POORE must have been buried in 1945 and CWGC updated their records on change of borough name in 1965 and felt they should leave the old name to avoid confusion - and created some!

Regards,

David

[eviltaxman]

David,

I recently posted a thread regarding a WW2 man who is (IIRC) the only man with two official war graves. His name was John Brimble - a BoB pilot shot down over Kent in 1940.

Les.

[eviltaxman]

Here we are... just found the thread............

John Brimble

Les.

[David Seymour]

Les,

Many thanks for refering me to the other post. Does this mean we have two men with two graves? Both CWGC POORE references are to cemeteries rather than memorials and so presumably we are talking about graves. Again, a kind Pal with a camera in the area might be able to shed some light on this. Are there two headstones?

And I, too, am sorry not to have put this in "Utterly" but was sure posting here would be best, given the nature of the question. And I was right! Thank you everyone. Perhaps, between us we'll get to the bottom of this.

Many thanks,

David

[Simon Jones]

This thread has been posted this evening on a similar case for WW1 - now what are the chances of that?

Regards

Simon

[David Seymour]

Simon,

Now that is interesting. And being about a WW1 soldier it makes this thread "legal", at last!

I wonder, now, how many more such examples of double-entry burials are lurking in the depths of the CWGC.

Thanks for drawing attention to that co-incidence of topics.

Best wishes,

David

[eviltaxman]

David,

In respect of Brimble... it is two graves for the same man - not a grave & memorial. Because his remains were found twice (!) he was buried twice.

With regards to Crew (see other link by Simon), he is on a memorial and has a seperate grave.

Les.

[David Seymour]

Les,

Yes, I see what you mean. The circumstances of Brimble and Crew were different, and possibly also different from POORE, especially if Garth is correct about it being administrative. Still we do seem to have started a collection of "doubles", even if they are not exactly the same.

Best wishes,

David

[Terry Denham]

Chaps

You have got hold of the wrong end of the stick with POORE.

This is not a war grave entry but a WW2 Civilian War Dead casualty.

CWGC is obliged to record the names of all WW2 Commonwealth civilian who died through enemy action - the names only and not their burial locations. They are not responsible for the grave maintenance either.

The 'cemetery' listed is NOT a cemetery but the name of the local authority who reported the death. It was each local authority who had the resposibility of drawing up the lists of such deaths.

This is the area where the death occured - either the actual location or the location of the hospital where a death may have occured. The burial place can be anywhere and is not recorded by CWGC as they are not required to do so.

If this is the same person, then it means that two authorities reported the death.

There are very few duplications in the CWGC list but they do occur and are gradually being weeded (I found five last year). Most that occur are amongst Asian or African troops where name spellings vary and there is little or no evidence to prove whether two names are the same person.

I'll check if POORE is a duplicated entry.

[Terry Denham]

CWGC have confirmed that this is a duplicated entry.

It was caused by both local authorities reporting the death. He was injured in St Marylebone (50 also killed in same incident several years before) but actually died in the Paddington area.

The St Marylebone entry has been converted to a 'Civilian War Dead Link'. This is a recent addition to the WW2 Civilian Casualties whereby deaths from the same family or other interesting entries can be cross-referenced.

[David Seymour]

Terry,

Many thanks for the explanation. Now I quite see what has happened.

However, I see a problem in need of a CWGC solution. Those of us who have posted on this topic clearly have some experience of using the CWGC website and we were somewhat confused! My inquiry was on behalf of one of my Year Nine pupils - you might imagine her consternation on finding this chap POORE had died twice! Do you think that there is any way that CWGC can mark the small number of doubles so that people (especially children) can deal confidently with the records?

Once again many thanks for clearing up the point.

With best wishes,

David

[Terry Denham]

David

CWGC always do as you suggest in these situations.

1) If the duplication is a genuine error, the incorrect entry is deleted.

2) If a man served under an 'Alias', he has two entries but one is clearly marked as the duplicate alias entry with a cross reference to the main entry.

3) In the case of WW2 Civilian War Dead, as I explained above, a 'Civilian Link' entry is added to cross reference the entries.

See http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/casualty_...asualty=3121083

No confusion should arise with this example in future.

It has to be remembered that the CWGC records for WW2 Civilian War Dead are not the same as those for Commonwealth War Dead although they do appear in the same format.

CWGC only has to record the names of these civilians (WW2 only as their remit does not cover WW1 civilians) - nothing else. The names are actually inscribed in large volumes held in Westminster Abbey, London where a page is turned each day.

This group of casualties does not receive great attention from researchers and so most people are less familiar with the differences in the type of records held by CWGC for them.

For anyone interested, just treat 'Cemetery' as the place of death. You can enter a town name, a ship name, a country name for non-UK deaths or even 'air crashes at sea'. It can open up a whole new field of interest!

[Nick Cooper]

It has to be remembered that the CWGC records for WW2 Civilian War Dead are not the same as those for Commonwealth War Dead although they do appear in the same format.

CWGC only has to record the names of these civilians (WW2 only as their remit does not cover WW1 civilians) - nothing else. The names are actually inscribed in large volumes held in Westminster Abbey, London where a page is turned each day.

This group of casualties does not receive great attention from researchers and so most people are less familiar with the differences in the type of records held by CWGC for them.

For anyone interested, just treat 'Cemetery' as the place of death. You can enter a town name, a ship name, a country name for non-UK deaths or even 'air crashes at sea'. It can open up a whole new field of interest!

It should me mentioned, though, that many of the civilian records include actual place of death or injury and the home address, even when it is t6he same. The only drawback is that due to the by-borough grouping, it's not always an easy task to find everyone killed or injured in a particular incident, as the wounded sometimes died in - or en route to - hospitals in other boroughs. I've done some work around those killed or fatally injured at London Underground stations that highlights these issues quite well.

[Terry Denham]

Oddly, there is another thread running on this very subject.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...topic=34184&hl=

[Nick Cooper]

Oddly, there is another thread running on this very subject.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...topic=34184&hl=

Yes, typically I spotted it about twenty seconds after posting the above!

[David Seymour]

Terry,

Many thanks. Most interesting. I tried "air crashes at sea"! But I didn't know it was there. Have I missed an important index somewhere on the site?

Getting back to POORE. There remains, I think, the problem of being fourteen years old and coming across a Casualty Search Result which appears to give a man buried (because it says cemetery) in two places. At present there seems to be no easy way of the child being able to understand what is going on. The best I could think of was to ask the Pals - hoping you might pick it up!

Many thanks for all your help.

Best wishes,

David

[Terry Denham]

The use of the word 'Cemetery' is simply because that is the name of the field used for both war grave burial sites and civilian war dead informing boroughs. They are the same item of info to CWGC.

You are still thinking of the way in which the record used to be listed until you pointed out the error. This has now changed as I explained but you will not be able to see it until the next update.

As I explained above, there is now no danger of this person apparently having two entries as they are cross referenced and one is subordinate to the other. This is probably the only example of this situation in 1.7 million records.

For 'air crashes' or any of the other 'locations' I listed, simply set the search facility to 'Cemeteries' and enter the required item. Do not enter a date/war/force etc.

[David Seymour]

Terry,

Thank you for taking the trouble to explain all of this. Many thanks for getting this entry changed to avoid future confusion. I look forward to seeing the updated version.

With best wishes,

David