Getting started with my research - advice please!

[km1971]

Hi Matthew

Army numbers were not recycled, but each battalion within each regiment had their own sequence, so the same number can be found lots of times. The duplication was greatly reduced in March 1917 when a re-numbering was done. Duplication was not removed completely until unique numbers were introduced in the early 1920s.

7962 matches the number on www.cwgc.org. If there is a problem it will be with Ancestry's indexing.

Men who died did not receive a pension. You will have to wait until Ancestry publish 'WW1 Service Records' for men with surnames beginning S to see if his survived WW2 bombing. If his records did not survive the best you can do is to look up the actual medal roll the MIC refers to to get his date of enlistment. Before WW1 the records of men who died in service were routinely destroyed after 20 years. So having any from WW1 is a bonus.

Regarding the Ancestry pensions files. It is a well known 'feature' of this section that they 'point' you at the first page of the enlistment form. You must always press the PREVIOUS button until you come to another man, as they surrounded the enlistment forms with his discharge/pensions pages, and the first half of these forms were microfilmed before the service record.

Ken

[MatthewJ]

Thank you all very much for your replies and advice. If there were a mention in a local newspaper would it most likely be soon after his death, or did they publish a list periodically? I suppose then that the easiest way to confirm the connection is to confirm that the Edward Savery who married Ada J. Bell is the same Edward Savery who was my great-grandfather's half-brother. I think I'll try to work from there and if confirmed then I'll investigate the leads that you have all given me further. Thanks again for all of your help,

Matthew

[MatthewJ]

P.S. Just looking again at the medal roll card with the  other person with the same number, his record doesn't say that he was in the 7th Lincolnshire Regiment, so I suppose that makes sense.

Matthew

[Sloe Gin]

If there were a mention in a local newspaper would it most likely be soon after his death, or did they publish a list periodically?

As he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, this means that he has no known grave.  It's possible that he was buried in a known grave, and the grave later lost in further actions or destroyed by shellfire, but more likely that he was posted as missing.  In that case it may have been a long time before his death was confirmed, so it would be worth looking through later issues of the paper (up to a year or more) if there is no mention near the date of death.

[MatthewJ]

Oh okay, thanks for that. So if the latter of the scenarios that you provided were true, does that mean that the 12/10/1917 would be the date that he went missing? I just wondered why they would give such a specific date of death if he was unaccounted for.

Matthew

[Sloe Gin]

You'd need to check the battalion diary to see exactly what they were doing on that date, but it falls within the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), which is consistent with the Tyne Cot commemoration.  ORs are seldom mentioned by name, unfortunately.

If he was missing in action, without a surviving eye witness, there might have been the possibility of his having been taken POW.  But someone may have been able to confirm what happened to him.  If not, the date on which he went missing would be presumed to be the date of death.

[MatthewJ]

Thank you very much for that Cats Ears. A couple of quick questions though (sorry): What's an OR? and where could I find the battalion diary? I saw that they have some on 1914-1918.net, but I couldn't see the one in question.

Thanks,

Matthew

[Rena]

O.R. = Other Ranks = the ones without any stars on their shoulders or stripes on their arms

As for war diaries - I haven't managed to find the one I want yet   

Cheers,
Rena

[Sloe Gin]

The war diaries will be at the National Archives in Kew - some are available to download, but I couldn't see 7th Lincs on a quick search, so you might have to visit.

Or you could try the Regimental Museum
http://lincsregiment.tripod.com/page10.html

or it might be worth asking on the Great War Forum - if someone has a special interest in the Lincs Regt, they might have a copy.  Bit of a long shot, but it's a very good place for getting answers on all aspects of WWI.
http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?act=idx