Alfred Bradshaw

[Chris_Baker]

L/15220 Pte Alfred Bradshaw was one of the men whose graves were moved to Cement House Cemetery Langemark, all the way from Maisieres near Mons when their small plot had to be cleared for road widening some years ago. I was intrigued to see the very early date of 21 August 1914 on his headstone. Can any Royal Fusiliers of Mons buffs enlighten me as to the circumstances of his death?

And as a secondary point, a search for deaths of men from 'first casualty' to end of 22 August 1914 on the SDitGW CDROM lists an incredible 143 names - of which perhaps are 120 or more are due to errors in entering the date when the database was compiled from paper. I must say it makes me wonder what proportion of the entries carry an error. The very first time I used the CDROM, I searched for one of my relatives. He was not there. I eventually found that his surname had been mistyped. Overall, there is no doubt that having the SDitGW searchable is an amazing boon and a great achievement, but it does make me a little sceptical about relying on it too much for research purposes.