Genealogy Chat

After ancestry added 1901 Yorkshire recently I found the cousins/half cousins to my Great Grandparents and Grand Parents and then after checking on the Common Wealth war graves site - a good number of these perished in WWI. Wonder how many poor souls in our respective families perished in WW1 and the influenza epidemic inbetween the 1911 and 1921 census? Glad that wasn't my children. Jacquie

Jacquie Sometimes we find very sad things in our family history. I am lucky in that as far as I know, none of my family died in the world wars, and my grandmother and a great-aunt both survived the flu epidemic. I read a couple of books about WW1 as background and it was really sad. I've just finished a novel that has the Irish famine of 1847 as its setting and it was heartbreaking. nell

Vaery sad. Hubbies Great grandad died in WW1 in Belgium, I found it all at the War Graves Commission. He was a married man and father called up in his forties!! Terrible thing is, grandads father committed Suicide in his thirties.

Wasnt it something like a million and a half British Troops perished in WW1? And not a yard of ground gained by either side at the end. What a stupid waste of life. Although none of my rellies perished, it meant that most of my great aunts never married - there were just not enough men left of their age group. But twenty years later, we went and did it all over again (OK, different reasons, but the end result was the same) Marjorie.

The first world war was just a complete slaughterhouse and for no reason - I've read several books about it now and still have no idea what it was all about. and I feel desperately sorry for the Belgians, their entire history seems to have been about other people fighting wars in their country and turning them into refugees. nell

During my research I found my G.Uncles WW1 Grave he was in his mid twenties,such a waste of a young life and my G.Grandmother died in the Spanish Flu Epidemic.Bringing it up to date my son is in his early thirties and is a long serving soldier and has already been in the 1st Gulf War,the Bosnian War ,the recent Gulf War and will probably be returning again to the Gulf again for a tour of duty.Do we ever learn........ Elaine

Hi Jaquie - yes, it is certainly very thought-provoking when you realise how many millions of very young men perished in WW1. I went on a trip to the WW1 battlefields a couple of years ago and was stunned by the sheer numbers of people killed. Since then I have found a great-uncle who was killed in 1915 and whose name is on the Mennen Gate. He was 25. I also have 3 rellies who died in the Great Plague. Another horrific waste of young people.

Such a terrible waste of life. I wonder if the world would be any different if those young men had survived, would any of them changed things for us all. I only just found out my Grandfather was married to another girl before my nan, which came as a bit of a shock to my auntie (80)! I have sent for the cert, but as he married her in 1916 (when he was in WW1) and the poor kid died aged 23 only 18 months later seems likely that it may have been the flu eperdemic.

Yes, thats one of the great things about doing a tree - all those names not seen for hundreds of years, and there they are for everyone to remember. Hopefully long after we have gone the internet will hold that info.

I've discovered WWI losses on both sides of the family and my cousin was killed in the RAF in WW2, plus a civilian bombing victim and at least one 1918 flu victim. Not to mention people falling off carts and being run over by them in the 1880's and being knocked off a bicycle and killed by a car in the 1920's.

I always knew my grandmother lost a brother in the first war but have since found that my Grandfather lost 4! One each year of the war. I cannot imagine how my Great Grandparents coped with all this sadness.

I can only agree with what everyone is saying. My granda had five cousins who seem to have vanished sometime after 1908 so possibly the flue or the war got them. I can't find any records of their deaths though. Grandad was one of only 5 survivors when his ship was sank in the Dardanelles in WW1 and his eldest son was drowned in WW2 when his ship was sank in a collision with a French merchant ship. By all accounts my granny went to her grave a broken woman. Shaun

I 'accidentally' discovered my grannie's brother on the CWGC site who my Dad didn't even know existed. He died at Ypres Salient in 1917 and his body was never recovered. Like other people, I've located the memorial information on the site, obtained his medal card and his records thru Kew. Finding him really affected me for a while. I can't explain it but it wasn't the same as finding a death for someone aged 65 who'd had a wife, children and a life. This kid was only a little older than my eldest is now when he died. And the idea that he just stayed out there, never having a proper funeral and an actual grave, was heart-wrenching Lou

I think I have told this story before, but my Nan was one of 10 and her two sisters Floss and Dod were in an air raid shelter at Buckles Alley off North End Road, Fulham on 13 September 1940. Dod's husband and two little boys, aged 2 and a half and 4 weeks old were with them. Floss was 35, married for 5 years but no children. Anyway, they were bombed and the only one who survived was Dod, then aged 21. She lost half her leg, her sister, her husband and her two little ones. She never remarried and died aged 70 in 1989. Floss's husband: George Cox Private 7340688 117th Btn Middlesex Regiment died on 25th October 1942 Age 35, Burried at El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt Grave XXVI.D.7

I was recently reading a book called The thin yellow line. It was about the "shell shocked" soldiers who, because they could stand it no more, went AWOL. When they were found, they were often taken back to their unit. Iif their crime was deemed to be abdication of their responsibility,they could be executed by their own regiment. Some of these men were no more than seventeen. It is awful to think that men, who had been comrades, were employed to mete out this sort of "justice" These men were classed as cowards when we now know that the were suffering post traumatic stress. There was a letter, written by one of these young lads to his Mother. His troop had been practically wiped out and he was petrified. It was his first time away from home and he had done the honourable thing and fought for his country. He watched his friends die and when he could bear it no more he was shot by his own regiment. It must have had a terrible effect on the morale of those employed to do the deed.

There are some really heartbreaking stories, I feel sad for what they lived through in WWI and II. At least we won't forget. Jacquie