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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: Kevwood on Wednesday 15 June 05 18:11 BST (UK)
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These are my Grandad and great grandads WWI medal cards, can anyone clarify the bits of writing at the bottom for me please. I have read that it is about mentions in dispatches, but what info can i get from knowing this.
Thanks .
Kev.
This is grandads
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And these are great grandads.
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kev,your g/fathers card says he was a pte in the glouc regt,he had three army numbers,1754,265089 and 5174421,he landed in france on 26-5-16,he was awarded the war+victory medals.
your great g/father was a col/sgt in the glouc regt later a CQMS,his army number was265008,he landed in france on31-3-15,he is also TA.awarded the war+victory medals and 1914-15 star,mack
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Hi Mack, thanks for that,i knew their numbers, do you know why my grandad had 3, would they be militia,volunteers and regular army numbers?
Kev.
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kev,all i can be sure of is this,the 1st No is his orig one,the 2nd was when he was renumbered during the war,the third one i cant be positive about,he could have gone into the labour corps,that would explain it,it looks like one of their numbers,mack
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Thanks Mack.
I have contacted the Gloster regiment museum and they don't have him under the last number so i have now E - Mailed them asking to look under the first and second numbers. Fingers crossed.
Kev.
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kev,check the rim of his victory medal that may tell you,mack
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Hi Kev,
Thanks for the pm,it's a pleasure to be able to help out where I can. :)
Are you sure that these are the medal cards for two men? as it looks to me that they might be for the same man.The first service number he was given was 1745 and it was quite common for soldiers to have a few service numbers during their time in the army and he would have been a private.
Soldiers were often given a new number if they moved to another unit or even if they went to a different battalion within the same regiment.My ggrandfather had five different numbers,a four figure one from his service in the boer war and the others from his time in ww1.
Two of the service numbers on the medal cards are very close and would probably mean than both your grandad and ggrandad both served in the same battalion at the same time,either that,or the number is a mistranscription,would that fit with what you know?
I'm not sure about all of the annotations on the medal cards (I'll look into it) but the numbers next to the medal names are the reference numbers for the medal roll on which they can be found (they are kept at TNA).Both medal cards refer to the same medal roll and page number.
I'll have a look around and see if I can find anything and I'll let you know.
Best wishes,Mick ;)
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Hi Mick, yes they both served together in wwI in the same regiment.
I know the emb bits are emblems and date . But i dont know what that means exactly.
Kev.
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Hi Kev,
Sorry that it's taken a while to get back to you.
Regarding the emblem reference,I found this on TNA's website;
On some cards the note "EMB" or "Emblems" may be found, which denotes that an individual had been "Mentioned in Despatches" (MID) and that at least two "oak leaf" MID emblems had been sent to the recipient.
Your Em reference number will relate to the document that records his mention in despatches(it should be at TNA) it also tells us that the award was issued to him on the 10th of the May 1920.
On the MSM index card it gives the issue number (60) of the London Gazette that the award was announced in.Issue 60 covered the dates 18th or 24th or 30th January or 22nd February 1919,he will be mentioned in one of those,it's gotta be worth a look.
I hope that anyone else who is reading this will be able to fill in any gaps re the medal cards,failing that,it would be well worth posting your mic's on 1914-1918.net on the MIC interpretation thread,if someone there can't help you,no-one will be able to!
Good luck Kev,I reckon that you have some very interesting research ahead of you :)
Cheers,Mick ;)
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Hi Mick
How are you??
One of these days would you do a tutorial on TNA? It's very rare that I can get info - I seem to just go around in circles - and you are so cool with it!! I can never get the right keywords for example - any tips and hints would be very much appreciated
Annie
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Thanks mick, i shall check out the gazette later.
Morning Annie. ;D
Kev.
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Morning Kev !
Hope you feel up to checking out the Gazzette !
:-X :-X
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This is the mention in dispatches from the 1st june 1918 Gloucester Journal, very kindly sent to me by keziahemm.
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Thought this was fun this is my grandads.
Kev.
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WOW.. Kev -
how cool is that?? - I like that much better than the Journal!!!!!
I love it - you're so lucky to have so much neat stuff ...!!
Annie
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I am really happy with the semaphore one, my auntie has it and that is a photo i took . looks good don't it ;D
Kev.
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kev,the commanding officers signature on the certificate is Lt colonel h.c woodcock,he was in command of the 6th gloucs,the adjutant was h.h.g wilson,the chaplain the rev j.webster,company commanders captains,p.l coates,d.l rogers,l.r protheroe,c.e coates,l.w marshal,f.w hek,f.j langford ande.w tame,the honourary colonel was field marshal roberts VC.st. michaels hill was the 6th batts barracks,mack
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Hi Kev,
I'm really pleased that you have the mention from the paper and that wonderful certificate,I would certainly recommend further research,it can be frustrating at times,but when you get a result it's a real buzz!
Annie mentioned about searching the TNA catalogue,so I've collected the most relevant bits from TNA's website.It's much like using any search engine and it's a case of trial and error really but hopefully the following should help a bit. :) I'll have to post it on the next message otherwise it'll be too long.
Cheers,Mick ;)
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To get to the right search page,start at TNA's home page and go to the "Search the Archives" button and from the dropdown that appears,select "search the Catalogue (PROCAT)" and click on it.
Then click the big red button that says "Search the Catalogue".When the search page opens use the following to find what you want.All of the following info is from the TNA help page.
Searching the catalogue
You must enter a word or phrase in the first box.
To narrow down your search you may use covering dates.
Please note that dates exist for over 90% of piece and items and regnal years will be retrieved, but some entries have blank dates (particularly at sub-series level) or dates in an unconvertible form.
Searching by department
You may restrict your search to specific departments (WO, FO, HO, CAB) or record series (WO 97, FO 371, HO 144) typing their code in the last box. To search over several codes, separate them with a comma (,) and a space (AIR, WO). To exclude a code type NOT before the code: NOT WO
The most popular department codes.
ADM Admiralty, 1205-1992
AIR Air Ministry, Royal Air Force, 1862-1985
ASSI Assizes (records of the Justices of Assize arranged by circuits for groups of counties), 1554-1971
BT Board of Trade, 1697-2002
C Chancery (legal administration of the Crown and Court of Chancery), 1085-2001
CAB Cabinet, 1863-1997
CO Colonial Office, 1570-1990
DEFE Ministry of Defence, 1808-2001
E Exchequer (financial), 1086-1994
ED Education, 1818-2000
FCO Foreign and Colonial Office, 1950-1990
FO Foreign Office, 1567-2002
HO Home Office, 1700-2002
HW Government Communications Headquarters (records relating to interception of enemy communications and security of government electronic communications), 1914-1978
IR Inland Revenue, Boards of Stamps, Taxes, Excise (including Tithe maps and death duty registers), 1513-1999
KB Court of King's Bench (relating to litigation in which the state has an interest), 1194-1987
KV Records of the Security Service, 1905-1953
LAB Labour and Employment Departments, 1836-1995
MEPO Metropolitan Police Office, 1803-1995
RAIL Railway and Canal Companies, 1634-1982
RG General Register Office (including census of population and some non-parrochial births, marriages and death registers), 1567-1999
SC Special Collections (including Court Rolls, Papal Bulls, Ancient Petitions and Seals), 12th cent-20th cent
SP State Paper Office and Secretaries of State, 1231-c1888
WO War Office (including service records and regimental war diaries), 1568-1996
T Treasury, 1547-1996
Got to split it again (to big!) last bit to follow,Mick ;)
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This search finds data under title, scope and content, arrangement and administrative history at all levels (see the Glossary and Catalogue structure for information on fields and levels).
The search is limited to 3000 results. Within a record series (like WO 339) only the first 300 results will be displayed If you have more you will need to Refine your search. Searches can be refined by:
Being more specific with your search terms
Adding AND and a second or third keyword
Using double quotation marks to find only exact expellings ("Stephens" will not find Stephen)
Entering a narrower range of dates
Restricting the search to a government department or record series
Search tips
The system will find the most common spelling variations of your keywords. Calibrate will find calibrated, calibrating, calibration. To search for exact spelling only use double quotation marks: "Stephens" or "Hess".
Phrases: You can search for several words in order in a phrase. For example: Enigma machine, Council of Europe, health and safety, etc. The Catalogue will not find entries with those terms if they are not next to each other and in the same order.
To search for several words placed anywhere link your keywords with AND. For example, 11 AND Argyll, Edward VIII AND abdication. To link keywords AND must be in upper case, as searches for 'health and safety', 'foot and mouth' or 'health and safety AND nuclear' are also possible.
You can also use NOT, NEAR, OR. For example, Edward VIII NOT abdication, International NEAR development, Ghana OR Gold Coast, nuclear OR atomic.
You will need to use Brackets to indicate the order of the search in longer or more complex searches. For example:
development AND (Palestine OR Israel OR West Bank)
It is possible to search for terms with hyphens as in inter-allied or co-operative.
To find spelling variations or terms that may have foreign (special) characters use a question mark. For example, Sm?th will find Smith and Smyth; wom?n will find woman and women. Br?nn?ysund finds Brönnöysund and would find Bronnoysund too.
A wildcard (*) extends the possibilities in an uncertain search. Robin* will find Robins, Robinson; Pira* will find pirate and piracy but will also retrieve Piraeus or Pirani.
Apostrophes are recognised as punctuation, not search terms. This default allows the retrieval of possesive forms. For instance, a search for peasant finds peasant's and peasants' as well as peasant and peasants. If you need to retrieve apostrophes, substitute them with a space: Bo ness finds Bo'ness. Pattern of retrieval for words with apostrophe:
O’Brien finds Obrien
O Brien finds O’Brien
*Brien finds anything ending with "Brien" (including Obrien, O'brien and De Brien).
Good luck Kev,give me a shout if you have any probs,
Cheers,Mick ;)
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Mick - you're the best!!!!
Thank you so much for that - reading through it - I can see where I've been going wrong - "I get it" was a phrase I used I believe - that was on the site wasn't it? but I suppose I just didn't read it right...!!
Anyways thanks again - invaluable info ...........!!
Annie
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Goodness Annie,I'm blushing now ;D
I can't take the credit for it though. :-\
The help page on TNA's website has got a lot better,the whole site has,particularly the method of searching the catalogue.
All of the info was from help section, it can still be tricky to find what help you want though but TNA do seem to be making the whole thing more accessible.
I've no complaints about the site though,after you've used it for a while you get to realise that the information they hold is vast and I think that they've simplified the search procedure as much as they can. Once you get used to the way it works,it makes life a lot easier. ;)
Kev,I think that you should definately seek out the war diary entry for the date of your MID (The whole month would be good).The diaries that you want ARE at TNA but from what I can see they are not available yet for digital download (Typical! :-\ ) so it'll mean a visit to Kew.
If you can't get there or get anyone to go for you,the best thing to do would be to go to this site
http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?act=idx
and post a message there to ask if anyone has a copy of the war diary for the dates you're interested in.Give as much info as you can.
You might have to register,but it's free and worth it as there are some very knowledgable people there.I'm not too sure which thread to post it on,have a look,I'm sure there is a war diary thread,if you're not sure,read some of the other messages as there are plenty of others seeking similar info and it might help to give you some idea what to write.
I will keep a look out for any transcriptions of the 6th Gloucesters 1918 diaries,you never know!
If you do manage to find it,let us know as I'd love to know what it says but not half as much as you do, I'll bet!! ;D
Good luck Kev,keep us posted,
Mick ;)
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Cheers Mick, i have actually emailed the tna and they say they can post it to me but i need to tell them exactly what i want and they will give me a price and then send me a copy.
So maybe you could help me with that, i am not sure how much of the war diary i need, obviously if money was no object i would like the lot , but i have already asked somebody that is offering this service on rootschat and they said would be over 50 quid!! So i may need to do it bit by bit, starting with the most important.
Thanks for your help so far.
Kev.
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Kev,
PLEASE be careful in your dealings with TNA regarding quotes for copies.It will be expensive and to be honest with you,£50.00 could well be right. :-\
I'm sure that your itching to get hold of the diary entries but here's what I suggest you do.Post a message of the war forum I mentioned (there's no point paying TNA for anything yet as someone on the war forum might well have a transcription of the diary for the time you want - no promises though)
If that doesn't work you could seek out the services of one of the many researchers who do this kind of work all the time,have a look through Rootschat on the For sale/Wanted board or post a message on here asking if anyone can recommend a good Military researcher at TNA.If you're going to pay anyone to get copies of the diary,this could well be you're cheapest option.
It might also be worth checking Rootschat for anyone who might be visiting TNA and is willing do a look up as you do have a reference (which is half the work!).Whatever you decide,the TNA reference for the file that contains the diary that you want is WO 95/429 which contains the war diaries for 1/6 Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment 1917 Nov. - 1919 Feb. They were in Italy as part of the 48th division.It's up to you how much of the diary you want (or can afford!) I would certainly look at getting the pages for a few days before and a few after the day of the mention in despatches to start with,that should be enough to help set the scene.
The trouble is Kev,if you do get the copies,you're almost certainly going to want to know more,it's a very interesting thing to do.I started with just one entry in a war diary and as soon as I found it,I was hooked and had to know more,and more.......... ;D
You must be very proud of you grandfathers and I'm sure that they would be equally proud to know that you are taking such an interest.
Good on yer!
Cheers,Mick ;)
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kev,you are better off taking micks advice,go to the great war forum first,they will dig it out if its there,i dont know whos the gloucs regt enthusiast but ime sure there is one,but you have lads on there who have access to all sorts,post in on soldiers,thats the busiest site,and ask them whatever you like,they love coming up with answers,great bunch,mack
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kev,are your sollar ancestors from sheepscombe,stroud,mack
ps thanks for the PM ;D
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Yes they are Mack, then my great great great grandad Samuel moved to Long Ashton, Bristol. And his kids were born there.
Do you have something?
Kev.
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kev,this
private.norman sollars
67389.devonshire regt.1/5th batt
age.19
killed.28-5-18
son of.samuel+mary sollars,far end,sheepscombe,stroud.
buried in.kantara war memorial cemetary,egypt.
grave ref.d.145
his father was a gardener.
and this.
private.thomas.jesse sollars.
25197.devonshire regt.2nd batt.
age.37
killed.16-9-17
son of.charles sollars[widower]sheepscombe,stroud.
husband of.emma.elizabeth,far westrip,stroud.
him and his father were both stone masons.
ploegsteert memorial[no known grave]panel 3.
or this
trooper.sidney sollars.
2686.1st life guards.
age.28
killed.30-10-14
son of.william+mary sollars,uplands,stroud.
husband of.lilian.sophia.frances sollars.111 east st buildings.baker st.london
ypres menin gate memorial,addenda panel 58.[no known grave]
before joining the cavalry he worked as a milkman.
or this.
private richard sollars
266097.gloucestershire regt.1/6th batt
age 22.
killed.4-2-17
born sheepscombe,stroud.lived at painswick.
buried.heath cemetary,harbonnieres.
grave ref.viii.h.5.
and this
private walter.edward sollars
475484.princess patricias canadian light infantry.[eastern ontario regt].
age 26.
born.12-8-1890
killed.4-6-16.
son of jane sollars.1 fox terrace,stapleton rd,bristol.
ypres menin gate memorial.[no known grave],panel 10
checking them in your family tree will keep you quiet for a while kev. :D :D,mack
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Thanks Mack.
I know the first two.
Norman was son of Samuel and Louisa Maud MARY Chappel. I can link him back about four generations before that.
Thomas Jesse was son of Charles and Rose Matilda Partridge and married emma elizabeth Wallace.I can go back four gens with him as well.
The others i don't know.
I am sure i have a walter edward somewhere, but cant find him.
The one i really want to know is Richard. Not one i have but he was in the same regiment at the same time as my maternal granddad and great grandad(as you know already).
I wonder if they knew each other, how cool would that be.
Thanks again. I will try and work out what relation the first two are.
Kev.
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the gloucs are renowned as a family regt,some familys go back centurys,richard seems to be a mystery,theres no mention where he was born and his mums just says "glo"i dont think the lady was married???mack
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Right then, pick the bones out of this!!!
Sidney is actually Sydney son of James and Mary not William and Mary. Got him in 1901 census, right age ,right place and a milkman.
Richard i think is Richard W Sollars son of Richard Albert Sollars and Ellen Skelton.
No Walter in england except in a union workhouse in Stroud with what is probably his sister Nellie. Could well be him.
So can anyone work this out:
This is my line and then i will try the others. If anyone can workout the relations then i would be well impressed.
ME!!!
>
My Dad
>
Winnie Sollars
>
Henry Charles Sollars
>
Samuel Sollars
>
Samuel Sollars
>
Richard Sollars = Sarah Baldwin
>
Richard Sollars = Mary
>
John Sollars = Elizabeth Osbourne
Thats Mine back to 1713
To save the post being to long i will do them all seperately.
Kev.
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Norman Sollars
>
Samuel
>
Samuel
>
Thomas
>
Samuel
>
Samuel
>
William
>
JOHN SOLLARS and ELIZABETH OSBOURNE.
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Thomas Jesse Sollars:
>
Charles
>
William
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Thomas and Ann(same as Normans Thomas)
>
Samuel
>
Samuel
>
William
>
JOHN SOLLARS and ELIZABETH OSBOURNE
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Sydney Sollars
>
James
>
Aaron
>
RICHARD SOLLARS and SARAH BALDWIN
And possible
Richard Sollars
>
Richard Albert
>
Richard Baldwin Sollars
>
Aaron(same as Sydneys)
>
RICHARD SOLLARS and SARAH BALDWIN.
Now thats a challenge for you!!! I have no idea how to work out what relation they would all be to me?
Kev.
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Kevin
We haven't finished 14th June challenge yet - don't be putting another one up!!!! :P
Annie
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Must be serious if you are using my Sunday name!!! ;D
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kev,i think sidney was james nephew not his son,if you are sure about it,then the cwgc records are wrong,and need to be informed,annie this lad has done his homework,mack
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I cannot be 100% but in the 1891 and 1901 censuses a Sydney of the correct age is with his parents James and Mary and a brother William and in 1891 they are milkmen except sydney who is scholar and in 1901 James sydney and william are milkmen. And living in the right place and born in the right place.
I am also relatively sure Normans parents are wrong as well should be Samuel and louisa not samuel and mary.
On the website for the sollars it says he died in Kantara ,Egypt. So must be him.
Kev.
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Hi, thought you might like to know that Norman Sollars (Sept 1898 - 28/5/1918) was my great uncle. His brother Albert was my grandfather. Albert married Edith Workman 11/2/1928, and they eventually moved to Camberley in Surrey. They had two boys Albert Roy, my father, and Michael Kenneth. I think I have traced my line back to John Sollars (1616) who married Alice ?. She died in 1684. One of his grandchildren was John who married Elizabeth Osborne 5/5/1713.
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You may be interested to know that Norman Sollars is one of the me featured in Sheepscombe History Society's booklet on the Sheepscombe War Memorial - see http://www.sheepscombehistory.org.uk/warmemorialbook.html. There is also some genealogical information elsewhere on the site about people who lived in the village.