WW! recruitment methods

[avrilw]

Morning

I have been looking for some WW1 death records which have been lost locally because the church and memorial burned down in 1922.

I have been trawling through the local newspaper michrofilm looking for men who were not recorded on the main town memorials and may be our missing 22 men. This is taking hours.
Can anyone suggest a better way to do  it?
While looking through the newspapers I noticed that they published lists of men who had joined up.
My husband's Great Uncle was missed off a list and a paragraph saying he should be added to the previous list was published, so I think these lists were important.
Has anyone else seen such lists while looking through newspapers?
How could these lists be so important? Was it pride or what?  Apparently the local enlistment rate was very high.

Avril

[philipsearching]

For deaths you could try "Soldiers Died In The Great War" (on Ancestry), using your town as a keyword to see what that brings up.  There may be a possibility that the parish church minutes survived and ended up in the county archive - but that's a long shot.


Lists of men who volunteered to join up (1914-15) were often published in local papers.  Probably to encourage recruitment, but also to enable the parents/relatives and the townsfolk to be proud.

Philip

[MaxD]

You say "your missing 22 men".  That seems to imply you know their names otherwise how do you know that 22 are missing or am I not understanding this exactly?

I would suggest also that newspaper lists varied with the enthusiasm of the local newspaper owners and anecdotally it would fall off particularly when conscription began in 1916 and onwards.


MaxD

[avrilw]

Max D
  I was given the number 22 as missing by our U3A project leader. I don't know where she got that info. I'll look post 1916 and see if the lists were still published.

Philipsearching
 I tried doing that on Ancestry and it worked until I decided to search for my husband's great uncle. Ancestry do not include him so I believe their info is incomplete

avril

[MaxD]

Have you searched the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site for the great uncle (or the others?)

maxD

[ainslie]

Church/parish magazines can be useful, if retained there or lodged with a record office.  Vicars may have referred to recruiting, wounds or deaths.
A