Hello everybody, welcome to Family Tree Talk, your favourite Family Tree podcast.

I'm your co -host Nathan Ward and with me as always is...

Helen Tovey.

Hello there.

Hi Nathan.

Hi Helen, how's it going?

It's going alright, so I don't know whether you can hear but off to the side of me there's building work.

I've got a radio blaring, some pipes being hammered.

It's all about the work today.

People doing proper noisy work.

So hopefully that won't interrupt the podcast.

It sounds very soothing.

I can't hear it.

Nice relaxing work conditions for you.

Yes, nice relaxing work conditions.

Lovely.

So what have you been up to?

How's your family history gone?

Well, shock news.

I have stuck to the programme.

I have been doing the little project which I set myself to find out the records which mention servants in my family history records.

I'm not thinking about my own family members which are servants.

That's a separate thing.

I'm thinking about the servants who are live -in servants who are recorded on my ancestors, for instance, census records.

And I've gradually started...

Pulling them together into a document with the copies of the census documents and adding in photos.

And I'm going to put this as a blog on my website.

The thinking being that let's say you were trying to find one of these servants.

Then you might stumble across the blog and go, wow, that was the house that they worked in.

Cool, hey?

Yeah.

I've actually started doing this.

First house went well.

Nice and orderly.

Added the servant's details.

I did the census record, found some pictures of the gardens of the house, but didn't actually find the house.

But I have got pictures of the house, so I just need to rootle through.

Second house, guess what happened to me?

Did you find a rabbit hole?

I accidentally did.

Because what happened was, Ellen was there on census night of the 1921 census.

All good.

Yeah, she's a general domestic servant.

I think she's 21 she's around about 20 but in the house as well was her mum Fanny who was a widow who was just there as a visitor so I'm like my first incarnation was like that's so cool that you know the mum's come to stay with her daughter a bit like um you're not old enough yet but you know when your kids go off to uni and you go and visit them and see how they're getting on fledging the nest and stuff like that so that was my first thought and then my Because I'm a drama queen.

My next thought was like, Ellen has got to be seriously ill.

Maybe she grew up suffering from a long -term effect of the Spanish flu, which happened a few years before.

Maybe she's at death's door.

So then I went, oh, to the death register.

I couldn't find her in there.

I'm laughing because it's okay.

I didn't find her in there.

No possible contenders for her.

Yeah.

You.

I wasn't laughing at the potential situation then.

I was laughing at you.

Obviously, it's so dramatic.

Anyway, sorry, carry on.

Far too dramatic.

Far too dramatic and far too prone to rabbit holes.

There's a story here.

There isn't a story.

And if there isn't, I'll make one up.

Yeah, again, me, that's my brain, definitely.

She didn't die young.

And then I thought, well, I better just...

I was in full nosy rabbit hole mode now.

I wanted to find out who she married and what bit happened to her.

But that's not my job, is it?

That's the job of the person who's hopefully going to stumble on my blog and find the pictures of the house, which I haven't managed to find yet in my own bad filing system.

I haven't found the pictures of the house.

But anyway, they will materialise in the next few days.

So basically you're doing other people's family trees for them.

Which they don't even know about.

So it's even more random.

Excellent.

Yeah.

Anyway, as ever, there's always interesting learning points.

Tilbury and there's also an L &M Tilbury and they're very easy to muddle up and they both got, they were both born in the kind of Wickham area but they're five years apart and there is some muddling on the ancestry trees but you know when you're like this is not your problem, this is not your tree, this is not your ancestors, stay out of this, you don't need to sort it out.

So then by that time I was quite tired because I had stayed up a bit too late wondering whether the L &M survived.

You don't need to watch any box sets or anything.

You can completely wear yourself out with crazy stories all by yourself, can't you?

You can.

It's very easy to do, isn't it?

Even the most simple thing suddenly becomes a bigger thing.

Are you ready for me?

Is that your story done?

That's my story done, yeah.

How about you?

So, I told you I found some World War I records for Albert Hearn.

I say I found them, threw them in my mum's trunk.

And I was resisting looking at them until, one, I finished off with the David Hearn bit, and two, I'd actually made sure I'd got Albert Hearn on my tree, which I actually already do, he's already there.

So I was excited to look at the World War I records.

I thought, this is great, this is cool, this is what I want.

And most of the records are basically about his death.

This guy died in 1918.

as part of the Border Regiment.

And he's got a tombstone thing, you know, the white ones.

And I can't pronounce the name of it.

I'm not even going to try it.

Trios Abras.

Well, that's like proper Tommy.

They called Ypres wipers and things like that, didn't they?

So they made it all.

It's in Stenroke or somewhere.

S -T -E -E -N -W -E -R -C -K.

So he's got a tombstone there, apparently.

And is that from a key at all in your mum's trunk that you found out?

Yes, it is, yes.

But apparently some family members visited this cemetery.

So that's pretty cool.

But then in and amongst that, there's nothing about his service at all, apart from the reference to him getting some war medals.

Yeah.

Which was...

Allegedly, they were going to order it from the National Archives at the price of £3 .50, but didn't do, so I don't have a copy of that.

But I've got lots of letters from the government about his death.

Wow.

So I've got one from Record Officer Preston.

I am directed to transmit to you the accompanying British War Medal and Victory Medal, which would have been conferred upon Private Ahern Border Regiment had he lived.

in memory of his service with the British forces during the Great War.

And then it just goes on a little bit more.

So that's from Captain Colonel McKing or someone.

So that's, like, fine.

And then the next one I've got is from Buckingham Palace.

So this must be a letter to, like, the mother.

And this has got signatures of the king and Winston Churchill on it.

It says, I join with my grateful people in sending this memorial of brave life given for others in the Great War.

Signed with George.

And then the next page is signed by Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for War.

The King commands me to assure you the true sympathy of His Majesty the Queen.

He whose loss you mourn died in the noblest cause.

His country will be ever grateful to him for his sacrifice he has made for freedom and justice.

Winston Churchill.

So, as ever, there's loads of interesting things you said there, Nathan.

One, you said about your family member was going to order the...

records of the medals didn't you yeah and so you already know um the two medals that he was awarded because of what the letter says it said the british war medal the victory medal but it's still worth getting the medal index card because on there it potentially will say might not do because he's farther further on in the war but to start with they were very good at saying the theater of war that people first served in so that can be helpful it might have a little code so you'll know whether he first served and in in the dardanelles or in france or whatever and there's a There's lists online where you can decode the number if it doesn't actually say the place.

And then also on the medal index card, it will say if he has lots of different numbers.

So sometimes if people transfer to a different regiment, they might get a different number.

So you can have ancestors who have three or four numbers through the First World War.

number is really helpful for verifying you have got the correct person it's really there's lots of people by the same name but if you can get the person with the right correct name you're after plus the person with the correct number after you're like bingo i've got the right record so that medal index card list and the medal rolls um they're available on ancestry and i'm not sure whether they're available on find my past but anyway you've got a subscription to ancestry so do ideal we can have a look at that in a minute and then the other thing you said was that um you weren't sure where um his Commonwealth War Graves memorial stone was.

But you can look on the Commonwealth War Graves website.

It's absolutely fantastic.

And it will have detailed information potentially about who is next to Kinwa.

You might already know this, but it's still interesting to see what's there.

It might have details about the inscription.

It will have details of whereabouts you'll find his gravestone in the memorial.

It'll have maps and plans of the memorial.

It'll just give you basically like doing a little mini digital tour just by going on the website.

I do actually have that for the cemetery.

Cool.

I've got like a printed out document that says where it is and how to find his particular one and all that jazz.

That's good.

Yeah.

I just found another document, which is kind of heartbreaking, this one.

So this was sent in January, February, March, May 1919.

I can't believe I needed to count the months.

It's sent in May 1919, and it says, It is my painful duty to inform you that no further news has been received relating to number and his rank, Albert Hearn of the 8th Regiment, who has been missing since November 1918.

The Army Council has been regretfully constrained to conclude that he is dead, and his death took place on the 12th of the...

It's either 11 or 4.

It's really sad, isn't it?

So how old was Albert?

What do you know about Albert before?

He served in the war.

Well, this is the next part of my story.

So Albert Hearn was born in 1898 -ish.

So he was 20 when he died.

But the plot thickens.

Actually, no, the plot doesn't thicken.

This relates back to what we were talking about last week, about people having trees that might not be right.

So I've got all this information.

I've got all this Wargrave stuff.

If I'm perfectly honest, I looked through this file and there's no hard concrete facts about him other than it was written by either the wife or daughter of his nephew.

Are you wondering whether all that information in the folder doesn't actually relate to an Albert Hearn who's your family member?

I haven't got a link to bring him into the family yet.

from the information that I've got so if I take that as concrete I'm like oh yeah it's exciting and when I went to check that Albert was on my on my tree I looked at the hints quickly thinking maybe some of these documents are going to appear because you know it all relates there's quite a lot of war things nothing about the war appeared somebody else's tree appeared and they've got Albert in there same mother and father that I've got them down as on my tree Only this Albert gets married and he has children and a wonderful life.

Nothing to do with the war.

So my initial reaction is, oh boy, those guys have really got it wrong.

This is exactly what we were talking about last week.

But equally, I can't 100 % verify that this war record is to do with my Albert.

The only thing that makes me think it is correct is the fact that...

The next two Davids down, because obviously David Hearn, David Hearn, David Hearn.

My granny's dad named his first child Albert.

Two years after Albert was announced dead.

So Pam is like, you know, to honour his brother, he's named his first born son Albert.

So that kind of ties in and it creates a bit of a story, doesn't it?

Yep.

Whereas...

If he didn't die and he had other kids, then it's just a bit lazy naming your son after your brother.

That seems a bit weird.

I think you should keep hope, which is a bit of a not the normal kind of thing I'd say, but this is accurate.

The reason why is I can't think where you would normally get those letters.

So someone in your family has got these letters and they're sent out to the next of kin of the deceased person.

So if you think about the records which we get on Ancestry, they're archival collections, they're national collections, which are kept by the War Office or the Ministry of Defence or whatever you want to call it, and then have subsequently been sent to the National Rosary, subsequently being digitised.

Whereas those letters, those personal letters from Albert Hearn's company...

commanding officer then captain whoever and then those other letters they're sent to your family so the chance of how in full story mode it could be that one of your family members was looking through a local antique shop and saw a hern and we have herns in our family picked up the letters and was like and then winkled them into your family archive and making you think that you have got an Albert Hearn who died in 1918 that's a really that's unlikely It seems you should have confidence that those letters have come in a natural way into your family, like as you would be the normal way you'd expect, i .e.

they've been sent out by the military authorities to the next of kin of poor Albert.

Yeah.

Well, my initial reaction was when I saw this other tree on Ancestry was that, oh boy, they've got it wrong, definitely.

And I still kind of believe that, but then I'm willing to take the view that maybe I need to look at it from a cold perspective and maybe my details are wrong.

Well, that's a really wise thing to do, but I think ultimately, I think it's all going to come good.

Yeah, well, just like I said, naming the son after your brother is weird if he hasn't died, in my opinion.

I know people name their children after themselves, which...

does my nutting when I'm looking for family tree people called David.

But it's, I'm making stories up now, but it's, you know, it's that thing that he's honouring the memory of his dead brother who served in the war.

So his firstborn son after him.

So you mentioned there's a few Amaluthas who've been dipping in and helping with the family history.

So obviously all of your shared family history over the years.

I'd be interested to see, do you know who any of these people might be?

Because one of them could potentially have Albert's medals.

So that would be interesting to try and track down the medals, even just to get a photo of the medals.

Also on the, around the rim of the medals, then it should have details of his name and number.

So that would be worth taking a photo of the rim as well as the front and the back.

And then also because he died, then he should have been supplied or sent a death penny, which is effectively like a great big medal that doesn't have a ribbon.

And it's about the size of a very big cookie, like three or four inches in diameter.

And it's a dark bronzy colour.

So that could potentially be in somebody's care in your family as well.

Yeah.

The problem here is this was given to my mum.

Because my mum was interested in family tree, but it was actually given to her by a distant cousin or distant great aunt or uncle of my dad, who I've never, ever met.

It might even be further away than that.

I remember meeting my great uncle Albert very, very...

I was very young.

I was young.

But I do have a memory of him.

I could even picture him in my head.

So I have met Uncle Albert, but...

I don't know any of that side of the family at all, but it's quite interesting.

I actually have a hand -drawn family tree in this file that this lady's done, and she's put in brackets who's given her the information on this tree.

So the information about the guy buried in France was written by Georgina Hearn in the year 2000.

But she's done well, though.

Like, she's basically, she's cited her sources, so you've got a time frame of when this information was pulled together, like how long after the event.

You've got potential leads of people you can trace forward from your family tree to try and track them down, potentially on Ancestry, if that interests you.

Yeah.

There might be somewhere online.

Yeah, maybe there will be.

It's quite funny, because she's even put in brackets, like...

She's put like a little asterisk next to my mum's name and she's put this person is the family tree person, I think.

I love it.

She's doing a research and finding out who her allies are in this search.

Yeah.

She's quite cool.

She's very, very cool.

So I've got, it's not really a mystery, is it, this one, but it's an intrigue point I need to find out.

Well, no, it's not a mystery, but there's loads of things to follow up.

One, try and find him in 1901 and 1911.

Yeah.

And that will help give you confidence that he definitely is part of your tree.

Yeah.

And then another thing, find out about the unit that you served with.

And so because you've got that captain's name, that could potentially be useful because it'd be easier to trace information about officers.

So you could...

Trace the officer a bit to see if that's going to shed any extra light.

And also go to the National Archives website and see if the unit war diaries that you want, you've done that before already, are available.

So you log in, you should be able to download them free.

Otherwise, I think they're £3 .50.

Okay, cool.

But that's, again, you're probably not going to find your Albert died.

On the day that he died, it might say something like 17 men died and it was just...

He'll be one of the 17.

Yes, not named.

No.

There's one thing which I do find a bit mysterious about what you said, and I obviously misunderstood how it works, but my understanding was that with the Commonwealth war graves, then everybody who had an identifiable body, because people used to have multiple dog tags, at least as the war went on, then anyone who had an identifiable body got their own individual graves going.

with their name, rank and number on it.

And sometimes like the cat badge engraved into the headstone as well.

But then the people who they couldn't identify or couldn't find, they would be on the massive memorials like Heapful Memorial, you know, where it has thousands, tens of thousands of names written up on those massive memorials.

So I'm interested because it sounds as though he's got an individual headstone.

but it equally sounds as though they haven't actually managed to find his body.

So that's a mystery for me.

I'm like, oh, I've got to do a bit of relearning there.

It's how they'd be able to give him an individual headstone if they haven't got his body.

Maybe that's me selling you duff information.

I haven't done a full search on this, but I have a lot of information about the graveyard.

Oh, yeah.

So maybe he doesn't have one.

Well, he'll have...

Oh, no, I've got a grave number for him.

OK.

Grade number 111 .5 .5.

Then it says sugar or something like that.

I don't know what that means.

Okay.

So what's his military number then?

26906.

How do you spell Hearn then?

H -E -A -R -N.

I'm just intrigued to try and find him.

So I think...

So I'm looking on the...

Oh, yeah, here we go.

Was it...

Could it be...

Oh, no, I can't.

So I can't find him in the Commonwealth War Graves.

So what I think we need to do is we need to go to Ancestry and we need to look him up in the medal index card, see if we can find out any further information about him, whether he's got any other numbers.

Because I can just find, looking for Albert Hearn, who died in the First World War, and I'm only coming up with two entries and neither of them are fitting what you're saying.

They've got different numbers.

Yep.

Yeah.

And one's too old.

One of them did die in 1980, but he's too old.

So should we go on Ancestry and do a mini life search?

Let's do it.

It's just weird that I've got this grave number, but equally that could be wrong information from...

Oh, let's see if there's a grave number.

So we're on the Commonwealth War Grave website, putting in his name, Albert Hearn.

This is where we get one of our wonderful podcast listeners, and they go...

This is easy.

We can do this.

You've done it wrong, man.

Yeah, you've done it wrong.

So we've just searched on Albert Hearn.

We've died in the first world war.

And service number 26906.

And it's coming up with nobody.

So then we are going to get rid of his number in case that's putting things awry.

We just have two people.

One of them died in 1915, so that can't be ours.

The other died in 1918.

They're 28 years old, so that can't be ours.

Or yours, rather.

I'm hogging your ancestors now, Nathan.

So now we're going to go over to Ancestry.

We're going to have a look at the medal index cards to see if they can give us any more clues about Albert and help us track him down.

The 1911 census has him down as being 13 years old.

So here we are.

We're looking at the medal rolls index card.

cards.

I'm going to search on him and number 26906, search.

Border regiment, wicked.

So this is tallying.

Yeah.

So we're going to view the record.

We're going to view the image.

So what can we learn about him?

So he's a private in the border regiment and he's getting the victory.

and the British Royal Medal, which is exactly what you knew before.

Yes.

Then it does also have the roll number.

And I've only had this workout once swimming, but you can look up the medal roll.

So this is the index card for the roll.

You can look up the medal roll as well.

And very occasionally, it gives you a little bit more information about the unit your ancestors served with.

So I'm trying to think who it was.

I think it was one of my great -grandfathers.

And I think I found out a little bit more precise information.

So rather just border measurement, I think I found out.

I found out an extra detail which was useful for narrowing things down.

So that is something we can do.

But for the minute, it's not helping us with Albert and his entry.

It's not giving us any more information to search on Albert and his entry in the Commonwealth War Graves, which is annoying.

Very annoying.

We just want a linked name, don't we?

Or an address.

So the other thing is you've got lots of records in the book.

They sound like they're personal records which were sent to your family, but it doesn't sound as though, as anyone in your family had a look to see on the off chance that Albert's service records survived the First World War.

Not that I know of.

Like I said, I've come to this cold.

I don't know the person that's given them these.

Let's have a quick look in the First World War service records.

So these are the ones which were kept in a repository in, I think it was...

Arlen Street in the Second World War, and then as a result of action during the Blitz, there was a fire, and about 70 % of these soldiers' records, so millions of records, were destroyed.

Right.

But it's always worth having a look, isn't it?

Because you never know.

Just searching on him now.

Albert Hearn.

So he's telling us there's 18 results, so that's not too bad, is it?

No.

We're just going to scoot down them.

Slightly unpromising that we did search on his number and lots of other entries are coming up that don't have his number, which means that if they had had his number, that would have been served up, I would imagine, at the top of the list.

I think they're going, OK, we haven't got the one you want, but we've got all these other ones, but we're just checking in case something else loops out at us.

Right.

Hmm.

Hmm.

So it looks as though...

His record hasn't survived.

Again, annoying.

It is rubbish.

Yeah, this is all annoying.

So what are we going to do next then, Nathan?

I think I'm just going to go cry.

I'm going to search for his siblings and look around them and see what information I can get on them.

Yeah.

And just sort of tie the world around him a bit.

That sounds really good.

Other things we could do is we could look in local newspapers.

Go over to Funby Cross, look in their newspaper collection, just in case there's mention by the family of his passing.

Yeah.

And the details you got for his Commonwealth War graves.

But as you know, you found details for other people in your family on the local memorials.

So it's a weird kind of situation.

So in the little town where I work for Funby Tree, in the normal cemetery, there are some of those.

Portland headstone, you know, the creamy white rectangular headstones of Commonwealth war graves in a normal cemetery.

There's also all those massive cemeteries all over the world, particularly, for instance, on the Western Front, you know, with thousands and thousands of soldiers, which are, again, a Commonwealth war grave memorials.

But then, as we all know, there's loads of other war memorials which are nothing to do with that.

So you may find on another local war memorial, you can find out that he's recorded there.

That would be, it would just be interesting if you could find an Albert Hearn near where you, recorded on the War Memorial, near where you expect him to be.

And that's helping to tie him into your family in that location, isn't it?

Yes.

Yeah.

Very frustrating.

Very frustrating.

It's so frustrating, isn't it?

It's just, I just need one strand, one little link that associates him with somebody else.

And all will be good.

Shall we have a quick look now in the 1901 census?

Have you got his parents' names?

You have got his parents' names, haven't you?

I do indeed, yes.

Or the ones which should be his parents if he is your Albert.

He is going to be your Albert.

His parents are David Hearn and Sarah Gill.

I've got him on the 1911 and I've got him on the 1901.

Oh, you've already got Albert?

Yeah.

Oh, that's fine then.

I don't have him after that though, obviously.

Because you're not going to have him after that.

He's dead.

Yes.

So we can have a look on, should we have a look on Find My Past and see just on the off chance.

So whereabouts in the world are they living?

Is this a silly question?

Is it Patsy?

They're in Manchester.

Oh, okay.

We're trying on Find My Past just on the off chance to see if we can find him mentioned.

It's very grey, isn't it?

I still believe this is the right one, but then it's not looking good.

No.

I feel confident.

You see, the person who drew up that careful family tree, there's two ways, there's two kind of sides of the coin.

So back before the internet, when people did family history, they were much more slow about doing their family history, inevitably, records or the fingertips, but people were more methodical and did write things up carefully, but they'd probably also going on less information.

Yeah.

And I, I would say over the last, I've worked in a ministry for a few decades is being two kind of rivers of thought.

And one of them is the smash and grab, grow your tree fast.

Don't worry about the details.

got the rough idea kind of school of thought.

And then the other one is people going above and beyond to be accurate, thorough and excellent in their research.

So your person who's given you those details, she kind of gives me a lot of confidence.

She seems like a careful person.

Yeah?

Yes.

Yeah?

So I think we don't want to lose confidence in her.

No.

I've just...

Oh, I'm going off on a tangent, but I'm looking...

I'm looking at the tree again and looking further back on it.

This is her tree, the one that she'd written out.

And there was a daughter of David and Sarah called Harriet.

Yeah.

Who died as a child in India, which I don't think I've got on my tree.

No.

But obviously the India connection ties up.

Mm -hmm.

Oh, boy, that's interesting.

It's very, very interesting.

I'm going to have to like properly, properly look at these documents.

Instead of looking at them and saying, oh, they're pretty, I'm going to actually have to take in the details, aren't I?

It's got the marriage to Julia Farrell in Kilkenny, which we've had in Ireland.

And they're saying that Julia probably died in childbirth.

Oh, God, this is horrendous.

Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent whilst we're doing something else.

No, but it's all relevant.

So this is what I think we need to do.

I think we need to take...

a leaf out of Sadie Kaye's excellent research skills, strategies that she does.

And you need to come up with your research questions.

So it's like, so is, how is Albert Hearn related to me?

Or what more can I learn about Albert Hearn's military service?

So it's kind of both of those bits that you stick there at the top of the bit of paper.

Draw up a bit of a research plan thinking, right, what records could help me find out more about him?

Potentially, you've got those records right in front of you.

They're going to help you find out some more.

You're going to scrutinize them methodically.

Do your timeline thing, which you've done before, because that really helps see what details you have for when, what details you have for each person at each individual time, chronological order.

It's fairly likely that his records, the odds are off that you're going to find his service records.

We have found his medal index card.

The next thing would be to find his medal roll.

We could explore local newspapers more thoroughly.

I've had a quick little look and haven't found anything immediately, obviously.

And you could see if you can track down any local war memorials which may mention him.

Yes, definitely.

And then it's back to looking at the wider picture.

But the unit he served with and whether you're able to get, just get a broad brush for the minute.

You just know he served with the Border Regiment trying to find out where they were serving at the time of his death.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This all sounds good.

You've got lots to do.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

It's a weird one, isn't it?

Because when I saw these documents, I was so excited to see them.

And I am still.

It's very interesting.

But actually.

It's throwing up more questions than it is answers.

I thought it'd just be straightforward.

I've just had a sneaky look at the tree of the other person who's got this Albert on their tree, but hasn't married and living a life.

The only difference for their sources, to me, is the marriage certificate.

They don't even have a marriage certificate.

It's just a reference to the marriage.

So they don't have a marriage certificate.

So that would be interesting.

I could try and find the marriage certificate to see if the father's name appears.

Interesting.

Back to tracking down his war memorial, if you then go onto the Imperial War Museum's website and then they do have a database, like a register of war memorials.

You can search by people's names.

So that would be a good place to look for him in case he is mentioned.

Right, okay, cool.

Because sometimes people can be mentioned on more than one non -Commonwealth Warways War Memorial.

They might be mentioned on, for instance, on the School War Memorial or on the Lakewood Church War Memorial.

All sorts of things.

Yeah.

Oh, boy.

This is a good time of year to be researching him.

Sounds really commercial and dreadful to say it when you're speaking about somebody who's died, but...

This time of year, when we're in the autumn and we're in kind of the season of remembrance, then very often companies with big military databases do do things like offer free access to their military collections so that people can research them.

So you may find, by luck, you could search some databases that you wouldn't normally research.

Yeah, it's cool.

I keep saying that, don't I?

I wanted to have...

Some war things to research.

I clearly do have that now.

Oh, wow.

I found the Battalion War Diary.

Mm -hmm.

That's cool.

I even got a picture of the regiment.

Oh, boy.

What was their uniform like?

They're wearing a hat.

Oh.

And it's buttoned up.

It looks very World War I -like, thus my knowledge.

So is it a First World War photo?

Yes, it is.

Okay, cool.

So now when you're finding that picture of the Border Regiment in the First World War, and that's exciting, isn't it?

It is.

And now this is where I'm going to be a white dinosaur.

Now you can see why I absolutely loathe AI -generated images of history because suddenly if you were told, oh, that's just AI -generated, that didn't really exist and it's all a little bit wrong, you'd feel very disappointed and aggrieved, wouldn't you?

You would, yeah, especially if it's giving you clues.

Yes.

So if anyone does do AI images, I'm not telling anybody off, but please put a watermark on them so that everybody down the future will know what will if you get it.

This is amazing.

You've got your weekend reading there.

I really do.

I've got a full war diary.

This is a really cool website.

I don't even know where I...

Do you want to give it a shout out, Nathan?

The LonsdaleBattalion .co .uk.

It's a really well put together website.

It's got war diaries.

It's got pictures.

It's got the Eighth Battalion's first actions, their training, role of honours, trench documents.

Trench raid documents.

Yeah.

And also on the nerd alert bit, it's got beautifully referenced and footnoted information with little superscript hyperlinked numbers all over the place so you can track down exactly where they got all that information.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

I mean, I could end up researching somebody who's not even on my tree at this rate.

Oh, boy.

So, yeah, like you said, that's my reading.

That is your reading.

I think when we're doing a mixture, it's nice to have a mixture of general background reading like this.

Well, actually, this is quite specific general background reading, isn't it?

It's not going to mention your ancestor.

It's highly unlikely to mention your ancestor, but it's so useful for getting a feel for their life and experiences.

And then, in tandem, do actual...

health care research trying to find out records with mentions of their name so you can pinpoint exactly where they were here and there and definitely well it's expanding my knowledge of history and also as we keep talking about giving like texture and context to this person and their life like it's it's one thing to say yes they're in world war one but most of us don't really know what that means do we we don't know what their day -to -day life was or how things were so it's going to be interesting looking through that if he if he's in fact related to me um i really want him to be because i feel really upset for this person that's done all this research prior yeah it's great because of those letters i think he is i think he is it's just irritating though like because i've seen like obviously other discharge letters are war pension notes that have other people's names in them there's nobody else's name on any of these documents It's just like, you know, give me his dad's name just so I can say yes, it is David.

Well, that's my weekend gone.

Yes, it is.

Yes.

Okay, well, so that's what you're going to do.

I'm going to get out of the rabbit hole, stop worrying about Ellen or whether she died and carry on with my little mini project.

And we can see how we've got on next time, can't we?

Yes, we can.

I'm literally staring at these documents trying to will a name to appear of somebody else.

Come on.

It's not happening.

It's not happening.

But so what you can also do is normally you were trying to look for, I guess, you know, the negative spacing.

You're trying to prove where somebody was or wasn't.

You could play devil's advocate and you could go, I'm going to assume he's still alive and I'm going to tell the kind of the probable story that he died in 1918 on his head and go, let's imagine he did live though and try and trace him.

you know, get that marriage for him.

And when you get the marriage for him, get the marriage certificate, then does it have his dad's name on it?

He's trying to prove that he is alive and see what evidence you can find that he has lived.

Yeah, well, that was my one thing from that other person's tree.

He actually didn't have any marriage certificate.

They had some reference to the marriage, but clearly that's the link to see if I can see that document.

Then, yeah, if the dad is my David...

They've just got an index.

That's not going to show the dad's name.

They're just bringing a prayer research, or not really research, so bringing in a prayer, put the tree together.

Yeah.

Instantly, though, when I saw it, I was like, oh, this is that moral dilemma.

Do I get in touch with these people and tell them their tree's wrong?

But actually, my tree could be wrong.

Oh, boy.

Actually, no, there's nothing wrong on my tree because I haven't actually officially put down any details of when he's died, if he's died, if he was in the army.

So my tree's still right.

I just haven't fleshed him out.

But the information I've got is very different.

And the other thing you could do is, because adding information to the tree is a really nice way to make it keep clear and you can see at a glance what you've learnt about somebody.

So you could add him to a tree and then, you know, with the tags, you could add tags to say the level of uncertainty and go, this is somebody, and add comments and things.

If somebody else does come across your tree, they see his death details and they can see from the other tags and comments that you've put on, or the comments that you've put on, they can see that you are dealing with, you know, it's a matter you've got in hand, but you're not sure of the actual conclusion yet.

I think I'm less keen to do that actually in Ancestry and more keen to do that on my research log.

It's just making sure my research log stays tidy.

I am a little bit concerned about my research log.

Is that a topic for another day?

I feel like, yes, I feel like you've got a bit dirty with it and a little bit slack.

So I started reading a book the other day, changing the subject completely.

It's called The Match and it's a crime thriller by Harlan Coburn.

And it's about some person that takes a DNA test to find out where they're from because they don't know where they were like a wild child living in the woods.

So he takes a DNA test, try and find his dad and then gets caught up in some crime thrillery mystery that I'm not telling you about because I don't like to ruin things.

But it's all based on like doing family tree DNA research.

It's quite funny.

Really good.

I didn't choose to read it thinking it was all this is related, but then it's just like, all right, okay, yeah.

Yeah.

More DNA stuff.

That could be the thing which will just tick you over and tempt you to get on with the DNA.

I mean, not if it's going the way this book's going.

There's like, well, the murder's happening.

I'm not having it.

Yeah, that's definitely taking an unexpected turn, isn't it?

Maybe you wrote it.

No, no.

I've got a starish, don't you?

Yeah, I think maybe I need to rein in my storytelling a bit.

No, don't do it.

It's what makes you you.

I need to put loads of asterisks everywhere I go.

This is pure sermons though, don't I?

Yeah.

Anyway, Nathan, do you want to give the social media post a shout out?

If anyone wants to join in any of our conversations, I am splurging lots of stuff on social media at the moment.

It's all...

Just opinions and thoughts and conversations.

What do you prefer?

Recent ones that have gone out.

Do you prefer digital archives or do you prefer physical archives?

More fun facts about not George Horatio Nelson, but actually Horatio Nelson.

Did you know that when he died, they put his body in a big barrel of brandy?

No, I didn't.

To bring it back home.

But he preserved his body.

That's quite intriguing.

It's weird.

I also read other reports, which I don't know if are true or not, but saying that people on the ship put straws in the barrel and drank the brandy still.

That's not good.

You can't guarantee that that's true.

It's just a vital story.

But yeah, apparently the brandy preserved his body so he could be buried.

Yeah.

Anyway, there's a whole host of things that were played on the social media.

I think that's hotly debated on board the ship, whether they're going to do that.

Like, what a waste of brandy, or no, you've got to honour him.

Or maybe they were honouring him by having a drink with him.

Yeah.

Oh, I can't think about it.

Whatever.

Properly gross.

Yes, that sounds really fun.

It's always nice just to, like, let other people think about things, isn't it?

It is.

And it's also just nice to have, like, a little break from the serious focus of, like, doing your family history research.

Like, I'm so involved in David Hearn.

But actually, oh, yeah, I quite like to do this, that and the other.

Just have a little bit of chat, sharing the discoveries.

Totally.

OK.

We look forward to seeing you then over on our Facebook and X and all the rest of them.

Okay.

And also there's our wonderful e -newsletter, which gets more and more useful.

We have a tip of the week every week from our wonderful experts, which go in the magazine, as well as an in -depth guide.

So it's genuinely useful stuff.

And the sign up to that is www .family -tree .co .uk forward slash newsletter.

Yes, I know it now.

I know it now.

Take in four to seven weeks.

Yes.

Well, at least something good's come out of the podcast.

Okay.

So this is a little PS because partly because we don't want anyone to be going around the houses mopping up our shoddy on the spot research and partly because so when me and Nathan pressed stop on the record of the podcast, of course, we carried on talking because it's too interesting not to.

And so then we had a little rummage further on the Commonwealth War Graves website.

And so.

By removing, you know, that less is more thing.

So by removing his first name, just putting in his surname and his number and the fact he's serving in the First World War.

So that's pretty broad search.

There's only seven people who were relevant with that number.

And here we have an Ahern Private, number 26906, 8th Battalion Border Regiment.

See, that's like golden nugget.

So you haven't just got the Border Regiment, you've got which battalion he's in.

So suddenly that's so much more helpful for when you want to go and get his unit war diary, Brill.

He died on the 12th of April, 1918, at Trois -Arbres Cemetery, Steenwerk.

So, and then it's got the number.

So at...

It's got the Roman numeral three, S5, France.

More details.

So we're just scrolling about, having a look.

So 1 ,276 people are recorded at this, at the cemetery.

That's quite a small cemetery, which sounds weird and horrible.

Yeah.

And so what I'm looking for is a plan.

Download the cemetery plan.

Have you already got this?

Is this what's in your mum's?

or auntie's pack of information it is yes but it was from like 2006 that this research was done so whether it's been updated and changed since then well okay so now we're looking at the cemetery plan for Toa Abra cemetery sorry that my pronunciation is terrible that's the best I can do I'm not trying to be silly that's the best that's my best ranch I mean you heard my version earlier So this is interesting.

So when we look at the cemetery plan, I said there was a big Roman numeral three on his listing in the search results.

And there is here.

So we can see he's in this section of the, he's in the north, probably the northeast section of the cemetery in the section mark three.

And then he was in S.

So he's in row S.

And we'll just zoom in a little bit.

And what was the last number, Nathan?

Five.

So give me go through in S row five.

So there's six graves in here.

So he has got an actual gravestone.

Yeah.

Some information I saw on the site, stuff that was downloaded.

It says something like there are now, well, online, it says 1 ,704 Commonwealth servicemen buried and commemorated.

435 of the burials are unidentified.

But there are special memorials to ten casualties known or believed to be buried among them.

Which is of no help, but...

Well, it's interesting that...

So he has got a memorial, even though he's not necessarily got his body.

Yeah.

Anyway, that's the end of our little postscript.

We have found...

We found his entry in the Commonwealth War Graves.

So we're going to stop recording now.

And thanks for listening to the little postscript.

Yes.

Go off and do something else, everybody.

Yes.

You are dismissed.

Bye.

Bye.