RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Greensleeves on Sunday 20 August 17 18:30 BST (UK)
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This afternoon I have been looking at the children of a couple of people in my Brettenham, Suffolk, Grimwood tree, and have been somewhat humbled by the number of WW1 deaths I have found amongst the immediate descendants of my great-great grandparents:
William Simon Last, b. Kettlebaston 1876, son of James last and C Grimwood, killed in action, Flanders 2 Mar 1916. Lance Cpl, 2nd Btn Suffolk Regiment
John Horrex, b. 1894 Brettenham, son of John Horrex and Mary Ann Grimwood. Killed in action 18th Oct 1916, Somme. Hampshire Regiment.
Robert Waller Pearl b. 1881 Brettenham, son of Robert Pearl and Emily Grimwood.
Died of disease 29 Dec 1916 Bois-Guillaume, Normandy. Duke of Cambridge’s Own Regiment.
Harry Pleasants b 1894, son of Benjamin Pleasants and Ellen Grimwood. Died 21 Aug 1917. Killed in action Ypres. Rifleman, London Irish Rifles.
Reuben Pleasants b. 1873, son of Benjamin Pleasants and Ellen Grimwood, and brother of Harry (above). Died 30 Nov 1917, Louverval, Pas de Calais. Suffolk Regiment. Presumed death 30 November 1917. No body found.
I would like to compile a proper record of all those in my tree who fell in action, and I'm wondering if anyone has any bright ideas of how to do this. I have an extensive tree in Ancestry but as far as I know, there's no way of sorting by date of death, which would narrow things down somewhat.
Regards
GS
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Bound to be a better way than this, but the quickest way I can think of at the moment is to go to the "find person" bit on the right hand side and from the drop down select "list all people". This will list them all alphabetically along with birth and death. You then just scroll through them focusing on the death column. It'll obviously take time though...
edit to say this is on Ancestry!
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If you have your tree locally (on your own computer) you may find you can generate a report which is sortable by DoD - the old version of FTM that I use certainly has.
Jane :-)
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Thanks Stuart and Jane - both useful suggestions. I do have an old version of FTM on one of my laptops but I believe this can't be sychronised with Ancestry any more. However, it would give me a way of identifying a large proportion of those who fell in WW1 and WW2. I just feel that as a matter of respect, I would like to have details of them all so that I can acknowledge their sacrifices at the appropriate times.
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Does anc not allow you to download your tree as a GED? Then you could import an up to date copy of your tree into your old FTM software.
Jane :-)
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Gosh Jane, that sounds a bit advanced. Must check how much space there is on my old workhorse laptop.... would hate to overload and kill it! ;D
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I just went through my list of people and looked at the deaths date and checked all males between 1914 - 1919.
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Gosh Jane, that sounds a bit advanced. Must check how much space there is on my old workhorse laptop.... would hate to overload and kill it! ;D
Just as a guide, a 13000-strong tree created an 11Mb GED file
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That's useful to know - thanks Stevie! :)
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I just went through my list of people and looked at the deaths date and checked all males between 1914 - 1919.
Thanks medpat - was that on Ancestry, FTM or your own personal tree? Since I have no idea what I'm doing on this, I'm so grateful for advice from people like you!
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It was on Ancestry.
Where you have the people listed in alphabetical order, all the dates of deaths are to the left of the column under deaths. I just went down the sections and wrote down all the names. It didn't take too long, I have just over 4000 people on my tree. I later found which side of the family they were from. I gave a complete list to my sister but I also gave lists to my cousins to show who had died in WW1 from their side of the family. Everyone was touched when they read the list and one cousin said it would give meaning to all the anniversaries that we are having about WW1.
I found a total of nearly 30 deaths. It brings the loses home to you.
Hope this helps.
:)
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If you are doing a list to give to family members it's worth printing out the certificates from commonwealth war graves to go with them, my great uncles has his actual gravestone on it, my husbands great grandfather just has a photograph of the menin memorial as thats where his name is listed
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Thanks medpat, I'll try that!
Iolaus, I was thinking that after I have my list, I would check out CWGC and see what is on there. Thanks for reminding me. I'll be interested to find out how many casualties I have on my list by the time I've completed it.
Thanks to everyone for your input, much appreciated.
Regards
GS