Genealogy Chat

Thankyou for your comprehensive reply! I have the date of my Grandmother and Grandfather's wedding as 26th December 1892 but know not where in India. I have my grandmother's parents too but know nothing about my grandfather. My cousin sent me a photogragh of him and I want to know where he was born in this country. I considered the two C E Bayliss's as they were the only ones of the right age. Also I thought he may have said he was Welsh if his father or mother were born there. One of my daughters in law calls herself Welsh as her father is Welsh although she was born and brought up in Scotland! I will try 1837 site and see what I can find . Will try tomorrow as I have to go out now. Thankyou Teresa

Teresa If the births took place in India, don't just give up. You can still obtain them, but you will have to think hard as to how. One suggestion I have to make is to ask whether you have looked at the Regimental Indexes which will list all births to soldiers born anywhere in the world to include India? These Indexes used to be at the FRC only, but they are now on line at 1837 on line. I am unsure whether they are free to view or whether it is pay to view but I am siure you can find that out. You can then apply for the birth certs in the usual way. I have found a number of births in India that way, and then I looked on the IGI for further information once I knew the name place and area to look for and checked one against the other for my proof. Once you have located them then you can move forward but quite frankly until you have their birth certs and marriage certs it will be very difficult for you to move forward. It sounds as if your G Father was still in the army if your mother was born in India so you should find her in the Regimental Records. I have found a marriage and 3 children in the Regimental Records because my soldier was still in the army when he married. The era you are talking about is slightly later than mine but do you know if he would have had to have been 30 when he married or had that rule gone by then? At one time there was a 30 year rule for marriage in the army but as many joined at 16 and occasionally 14 then they may only have been 26 on marriage. My G Grandfather married in 1864 and he was subject to the 30 year rule. These are clues to look out for, the detective instinct!! Perhaps you could research that one yourself. Was your mother the eldest child? If so you can calculate back a year or two for the marriage Cert. If she is not the eldest child you will need to do a 10 year search. Believe me I know Family History is not easy, but you have to have the patience to plug away at a wall until it tumbles and most walls do tumble eventually but sometimes the process can take years. If your father is probably born Wales, I am not sure how you can even consider the two Charles Edward Bayliss born in Staffs and Dorset? The uncle you are talking about was probably First or Second World War and yes the medal entitlements are on line for both these wars but as you go back further in history, you will find that records were not kept with Family Historians and Genealogists' interests in mind!!! To get the records on line a person has to either be paid to research records for a specific event, or the work is done voluntarily by Family History Societies and others, and once assembled in correct order then the records are ready to go online, but we have so much history that I can assure you that it will only be a small amount that will get on line in our lifetime. Relatively small jobs like Medal Entitlement for a few thousand people or Census can be done reasonably easily although even those jobs take time. A book called 'The Forlorn Hope' might help you. Can't remember the author but an Amazon or Google search should find it for you. You can probably order it up through your local library. Most family history society libraries have it. I know my local FHS has it because I have borrowed it. Now when you get back to the 1600's that is when the going starts to get really tough! Janet

The trouble is that I do not have my mother's birth certificate as I said in my last reply. Also I do not have their marriage certificate as both these events happened in India. My grandfather was put down as Welsh as on soldier's children's birth certificates there is a section for the father's nationality. I know it is asking for the impossible but I was hoping someone could suggest some line of action. I thought that if one gave the army record people the name and rank and birthdate they would be able to supply the record. When I looked up my husband's uncles name on the war graves site I found his name rank and where killed and all within a few minutes. We found which battle he had died in and where there was a memorial which we did not know before. Thankyou for your comments. Teresa

Teresa Born 1866 your grandfather will have joined the army approx 1882-1886, age 16-20. He will have done no more than 2 lots of 11/12 year stints, so he will be out of the army by the latest year of 1910. He will therefore not have been involved with the First World War, so there will be no medal entitlement to look at. This means that he will be on the index of soldiers on line from the Kew National Archives. However, all you will get online is his name and regt possibly. Nothing else. So at this stage you must have done all your homework previously to ensure you have the right person. A common name like William Clarke will turn up many in the army of the same name at the same time from different parts of the country. Try the 1881 census to see where he is coming from and narrowing the gap of where he lived or was living at the time he joined the army. You do need to be a detective and try lateral thinking for success in Family History. His records will be at TNA Kew but you need to do this work yourself as only you have the background knowledge of your family to make an educated decision on whether or not the person you find is yours. Nobody else can do that for you. I would be very careful about having somebody send you details from ancestry without your own checks to ensure that what you have is correct or you will be compounding error after error. There is only one way to do this properly, to have your Birth Cert, your Parents Birth Certs and their marriage Certs to take you back to your G Parents and the G parents Birth and Marriage certs, using 1881, 1891 and 1901 census as checking points to tell you you are on the right track then you can check that the info you got from Ancestry was correct. Have you not got your grandfather's birth cert? As you know his date of birth this is the first port of call before you do anything else. I do not quite understand how your Aunt's cert will tell you that your Grandfather was Welsh?? Certs are expensive but this hobby has always been expensive and there are NO shortcuts. This is the danger of getting other people to do your work for you, you end up with several Bayliss of the same name all over the country. Bayliss, while not being the commonest of names I have seen often enough around every part of the country. and Charles and Edward are so common as to make one groan. I have searched for army ancestors at Kew and I always reckon on 2 days work to do the job properly, to include all the Muster Rolls. This is asking a lot of someone's time to do this work for you. TNA will search for you and charge approx £40 per hour. Janet

Thankyou. All I know is the India record that someone sent me that they got from Ancestry. It is from the India army quarterly list for 1st January 1912. It states:-birth 15th Oct 1866 First comm:- Date rank : Rank Warrant Officers Company:Military work serv. and public works dept India Remarks:Suprr. 1st Gr., Bhandara Divn., First circle Bhadra. C.P Another person kindly sent me two census entries for a Charles Edward Bayliss, one in Staffordshire and one in Dorset but no dates of birth so I've no way of checking. Also I have a copy of my aunt's birth certificate which states that he was Welsh. I would be so pleased if you could help me Tony. I don't know whereabouts in India that my mother was born She was Mona Gladys Bayliss born on the 7th April 1895. Thankyou Teresa

If your grandfather was in the army POST 1922, there is no way you will get the records without going through the official MOD channels and paying your fee of £25 as well as proving that you have a right to the records ie that you are the next of kin and next of kin has to be proved. If he was there PRE 1922 then you can possibly obtain the service record at Kew up to 1922 but NOT beyond that date because the records have not been released to the public from 1922 onwards. You can obtain medal entitlements for World War 1 and his service record for World War 1, if he served in the army at this time, but many W War 1 records were destroyed in the blitz on London of 1940, so not all the records have survived. As he died in 1935, he obviously did not serve in the Second World War so there is no point in looking for medals for the second world war. If you have already been told by MOD that you can only obtain the records this way then that is it! I had to pay £25 to obtain my father's records about 6 years ago and there is not a lot on the record that I did not already know although it was interesting to get the official document. Yes they were at war, so there was always the possibility that the full records were not kept up to date. I still have not got the record for my father of 1944-1945 and the same reason was given to me. I have, however, got his service record from 1919 to 1922 which I obtained for the price of a photocopy at The National Archives(TNA) Kew. The post 1922 records will be in the Public Domain at some time in the future, when the MOD decides that the records may be released to the public. Sorry to have to say but the ball is firmly in their court. Janet

hi teresa,if you put his info on this board ,i would be happy to search for you,or email me .regards tony

Thankyou for your replies. My grand father was in the army in India and died sometime before 1935. I know this as I have a copy of a notice in the Madras mail of my Grandmothers death and it says that she was the widow of Captain Charles Edward Bayliss. I'm trying to find out where he was born and what family he had. If you could find out anything at Kew I would be very grateful Janice. Thankyou Teresa

When was your grandfather in the army. Which regiment and when would he have left. I ask this as I may be able to find them when I visit Kew. Jan

Have you tried the National Archives? I got a download of my gt. grandfathers medal card from their web site. Claire xx

Please does anyone know if I can purchase my grandfather's army records online? Is there any way of searching for them online as they charge £25 for a search. Thankyou. Teresa