In From The Cold Project

[Terry Denham]

Here is the latest news on the In From The Cold Project.

Firstly, a general update…..

The GWF procedure for presenting non-coms to CWGC/MoD and to CWGC/Dominion authorities is working well with many successes to date.

So far the tally is:

Casualties accepted and added to CWGC Debt of Honour = 144

Casualties accepted but not yet added (burial locations being checked) = 30

Total Acceptances = 174

Cases awaiting determination = 22

Cases rejected = 1 (one of mine - later research proved MoD to be correct in their decision)

In From The Cold Project update

A dedicated band of willing volunteers has made inroads into the mammoth task of cross-check the GRO Overseas Military Death Index and SDGW ‘Home’ deaths against CWGC. All this has been made easier by Geoff501 adapting his search engine for use by the Project. Thanks, Geoff.

We had expected to check and clear each alphabet letter in turn but the SDGW crew has been so fast that we have now completed checking all ‘Home’ deaths – A to Z. The GRO troops have a slower and more tedious task due to the poor reproduction of some GRO pages but we have almost completed the letter ‘B’ from that source.

All batches are being checked and cross-checked at least four times. This process for the letter ‘A’ has generated a total of 52 possible non-coms – 48 from GRO and four from SDGW. These will be checked one more time including a check with Ancestry in case service records survive and then we will obtain the death certificates for each (we have sufficient donations). The death certificates may weed out a few more names but those remaining will then be presented to MoD/CWGC.

All the above checking relates to ORs but the Officers in GRO letter ‘A’ had already been checked producing one name and he is now in the Debt of Honour.

Before the DCs are ordered, I will send a list of the names to all volunteers so that they can see which of ‘their’ names are concerned and they can then watch their progress.

This exercise has proved to me that you cannot rely on any single source to be correct all the time – name spellings, service number issues, dates of death and regiment can all vary. One of the common issues coming to light concerns renumbered men. Often one source has one number and another source has the other. The MICs have been invaluable in sorting some of these.

In addition to the non-com issue, the exercise has thrown up many Date of Death and Surname scanning errors which CWGC are correcting as we go.

All I can say now is thank you to all volunteers but with special thanks to John Hartley for his sterling co-ordination work. Keep it up.

New volunteers always welcome! Please contact John.

[paul guthrie]

Thank goodness for the Western Front Association which saved the medal index cards!

[ian turner]

Respect to the project and the volunteers' efforts!

Ian

[Guest geoff501]

Terry,

Thank you for the update. One can feel a little isolated ploughing through GRO, so its good to see the total numbers that are coming out of this project. Thank you for all your hard work on this and thanks also to John Hartley for keeping us all organised. Without you both, we could not do it.

geoff

[Neil Clark]

Well done all concerned (Terry, John and all volunteers). You have my thanks & admiration for a job very well done.

I believe I was one of the first to realise the importance of this groundbreaking search facility which Geoff invented. It's a great pity his experience & undoubted technical skills here can't be put to better use elsewhere...

Neil

[Guest geoff501]

It's a great pity his experience & undoubted technical skills here can't be put to better use elsewhere...

story of my life mate

[Neil Clark]

And you know exactly what I mean when I say this..... (CWGC?????????)