CWGC archives

As part of their recognition of the centenary of the First World War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have added documents from their archives to the information held in their online database. The documents include paperwork pertaining to the collection and reburial of bodies, the creation of cemeteries and details about headstones. There aren't documents for all men but where they are available, they appear on the bottom of the individual page so if you follow the links on this blog which can be found with each man's story you will be able to look for them.  Eventually I will update all the posts with any new information.

Occasionally these documents give a new piece of information, for example Robert Campbell Revera's body was identified by his disc, the other bodies exhumed with him all remained 'known unto God'.

Looking at the record for Sgt John Simpson D.C.M. Canadian Infantry, I realised that he is buried in a small cemetery, of the 216 graves, 211 are for Canadians killed over a period of 6 days in Sept-Oct 1918, many of them on 1st October, the same day as Sgt Simpson.  The paperwork appears to show that Sgt Simpson has his own grave but shares a headstone with Private W. Caton.

The paperwork does show up some inaccuracies in the CWGC database, I have noticed one soldier whose grave-reference number on the website is duplicated, I assumed before that he was in a shared grave but the paperwork shows that it is a typo and rather than both being in grave 27 one is in grave 37.  This sort of human error is understandable and the CWGC are pretty good at correcting mistakes when they are pointed out.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who came to our WW1 Family History Day on Saturday, the turnout was excellent and we were kept busy for the whole three hours.
I hope I've managed to say "Thank you" to everyone who was involved in the day, it went very well for a first time!
Graham Seaman has shared his photographs of the day here on Flickr if you have a good photo of the day please share it on our facebook page

The Rev Neil Short of St James Church and his volunteers who ran the refreshments stand did a great job and all the donations that were given for refreshments have started off our fundraising for restoring the memorial, £104 was raised which is 1% of our target already!

A few people have asked me recently if that's the end of the project, now that the WW1 day is done... it's not over yet people!  The project has three parts :

The Research part of the project is continuing, there are still two men to find and plenty of information to collect on the other 60.

We have been Remembering the men through this blog, attending family history events, having their names added to the Town Hall, and visiting schools. As the centenary of the First World War brings more attention to the legacy of the war I hope to make more visits in to schools, attend more WW1 history days and with the funding from the HLF I will be setting up a few new projects with schools, improving the website and also, with my friends from the LFWWRC, set up some workshops and talks about the First World War.

The Restoration of the memorial will cost about £10,000 so this part will require a lot of fundraising but the ultimate outcome for this part of the project will of course be the rededication of the memorial in St James Church.

If you would like more information about any of the activities mentioned, please contact Amanda

St James WW1 Family History Day

Lives of the First Word War - Creating a Community

Just a short post today, I've decided my plan for adding the men from the St James Memorial to Lives of the First World War is to create a community and see how many of the men are 'seeded' already.

A community is pretty much what you'd expect from the title: a group of people who are connected in some way.

Creating a community is simple, on your dashboard click on the 'communities' link, then scroll down to 'add a community' you don't have to justify why you are grouping these people, just give your community a name, a brief description and if you represent an organisation connected to this community you can give details. I of course called this community St James, Toxteth, War Memorial and my organisation as the St James War Memorial Project.

To add a person to the community you first locate them in the bank of names already in the database, then when you have their profile open you have the option 'add to community' by their name. Select the community you wish to add them to (from your own managed communities only) and that's it. 

I've added 30 names to the community so far but there have been a few that haven't been in the database. Some of them will be added by the IWM in time - this is a long term project! but others will not be on their lists at all - I am thinking of Ernest C Benn who's death was not due to enemy action so he isn't on the CWGC and in the 'deaths at sea' register his death was recorded under his brother's name. There is no official record of him dying in WW1. I believe that at a later stage in the project I will be able to put forward a case for including him. 

Thanks for reading! 

Lives of the First World War

Apologies for the lack of updates on the blog recently.  One of the things I've been busy working on is getting the information about the St James men together ready to upload it to the Lives of the First World War project.

If you haven't heard about this amazing project by the Imperial War Museum then you really should go and check it out. When I first heard about it I was a bit skeptical, like many people I wondered how they were going to keep track of entries, how reliable the information was going to be etc. Then I was invited to be one of the testers. I kept my test entries small, just two men, but I tried to make their stories as full as I could - and I've been very impressed by the results. The system for uploading data isn't perfect, but it is very good and being improved all the time (taking note of suggestions from users too!)

My main reaction when I started to understand the project was one of awe, this is the most ambitious WW1 data-collection project ever. EVER. And it can work... but only if we all support it and contribute what we can.  Many of us spend a lot of time, money and energy researching the past and collecting information casualties and combatants of the First World War whether it be a single relative or tens of thousands of men from one regiment. The Lives of the First World War project wants to bring all of that together, all of it, every little bit, every scrap of information about every single person from the UK who lived through or died in the First World War.

This project is a gift to future generations who will be even more removed than the trenches than we are, and to ourselves, a way of sharing our work, our passion for remembrance and our pride in these men and women. It is also a gift to those who fought, those who never came home, those who came home damaged and those who had to watch them go and then pick up the pieces of their families, communities and lives when it was over. They will be remembered. In the past these men and women have been commemorated in stone and bronze, in poetry and prose. Now we are adding a national digital memorial as our 21st century commemoration.  One HUGE difference between this project and all memorials that have gone before is that it will include all men and women who made a contribution to the war, including civilian work.

So, I am planning on contributing what I can and I will soon be starting to add information about the men from the St James memorial, I'll post links on here for each man as I go, if you're a relative of one of the St James men, or have some information about anyone from the First World War why not go and get started? 

The first man from the St James Memorial to be added is my relative, Private William Edwin Noll. 

Amanda