I have three main "lost souls" about whom I can discover nothing more: unlike Rachel (above), my main "thorn in my side" is someone about whom we knew practically nothing (just the legend that he fought in the Boer War and survived) and have now quite a bit of information - until he disappears ...
My gt-uncle, George Henry Stevens, was born in Calne, Wilts on 7 January 1875, to my (ironmongering) gt-gt grandfather and his (ex-school teacher) first wife who died shortly thereafter. By the 1891 he had left home and was working in the Great Western Railway Hotel in Swindon as a porter, age 16.
He is next found in central London where he joins the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, transfers to the 4th Hussars and is sent to India, from whence is he invalided home, having contracted syphillis which his medical record states to be highly prevalent in both the regiment and the station (Bombay). He receives the usual treatments and is discharged as physically unfit. Otherwise his records show him to be a good soldier.
At the start of the Boer War he enlists with the 1st Wilts Yeomanry and goes to South Africa for the duration, marrying Isabel Montague St. John Mildmay in January 1900 (south London). They have two children (both of whom survived to adulthood but died without issue): George working as a commercial traveller and Isabel as a cashier. In 1911, George enters his occupation on the census as "comedian and dancer" in south London, but by 1914 he is listed in Kelly's in Walthamstow representing a mineral water company ("Fidler & Stevens": Fidler being his full sister's married name - so this is a family enterprise).
After all that, you must be wondering why I list him as disappeared
! Well, that is exactly what happens. I have no sight of him or Isabel after the outbreak of WW1.
The possibilities seem to be: (1) he had military experience (and an apparent liking for it) and he went back to soldiering. There are 2 or 3 medal index cards which could belong to him and also two possible graves on the CWGC index; (2) his past (and infirmity) caught up with him and he either became insane or died, in London or elsewhere; (3) George and Isabel died in the'flu epidemic of 1918. Or did Isabel survive him and perhaps re-marry?
Their son Edmond began working on transatlantic liners when he was only 16 at the end of WW1 - did he have to do this to support his mother and sister? He later married and took US citizenship. Did his parents join him?
Having watched George Henry's history fill out from a vague mention from my father's childhood to a varied and mobile career of a man with a family of his own I would dearly love to discover what became of him. Did he die fighting in France, at home of the 'flu, insane in an asylum or live to a ripe old age? There are no descendants to ask and (with such a common name) I don't know if I ever will discover his fate. I'll keep trying though!
Rachel
Addendum 8.8.09: Thanks to help received elsewhere on this site I have now found that George participated in and lived through WW1. It's taken years but gradually we're filling out the picture! Thanks to all who have helped.
