Two people with Same Unit & Same Regimental Number ?

[Janice M]

Hoping I can ask this question.

How likely is it, that a unit like the Royal Highlanders for instance would have 2 soldiers with the same Regimental number #6668? One soldier, Edward Lyle was in "Short Service" Black Watch - Royal Highlanders and the other I can't seem to find papers for but he is on the medal list with this number as well and apparently in the Royal Highlanders, but with the name John Clemo. (The other thing that puzzles me, is that there was no John Clemo born in Scotland, and I would assume that the soldiers in this particular unit would more likely than not have been born in Scotland, like Edward Lyle who was born in 1895 in Greenock.)

Neither of these gentlemen are related to me, but their regimental number is the same as my grandfather's (in the Royal Engineers).

[anpefa1]

Hello Janice

a couple of years ago I posted an enquiry regarding war graves that indicated one name and then indicated "serving as" with a completely different name!. as yet I have not got an answer to this question.

I have spoken to ex soldiers and British Legion members but thus far I have not discovered a reason for this apparent anomaly.

Tony 

[SmallTownGirl]

Some regiments had independent numbering systems for their different battalions, so they would have a soldier in, say, their 1st Bn who was 1/1234 and a completely different soldier in their 2nd Bn who was 2/1234. If their prefixes were omitted, it looks as if two different soldiers have exactly the same number.

Maybe this applied to the Royal Highlanders?

STG

[Janice M]

I was wondering if maybe it had something to do with the "Burnt Documents" possibly getting other papers in one person's file. It would seem unlikely to me that two separate soldiers would have had the same number in the same Unit.

I know that there are some documents mixed in with the WW1 Military papers, that were actually from the Boer war etc. My grandfather's were from his pre-war days from 1908 - 1913, which would indicate that they were in the same file as his First World War papers. Our family knows he was in the war, but we have no proof. That's why I was actually searching the only Regimental number I have for him. When I saw the name of John Clemo, I thought maybe there was some sort of mistake with the last name, and I would actually find Elder written on his papers. Unfortunately, when I searched the papers for this Regimental number, I came across Edward Lyle. That in turn prompted me to check out births for both. I could only find Edward Lyle's in Scotland, and nothing for John Clemo.

I wonder where the medal registers would have taken their information from and if from the files at the end of the war, then why nothing for Edward Lyle?

Very confusing.

Janice

[Jebber]

Edward Lyle had two different numbers and served in two different units, John Clemo had four numbers and served in three units, one of them twice. It possible that both had the same number because they were not both serving in the Royal Highlanders at the same  time.

Numbers changed according to the unit they were in at the time, it was not until after the war that numbers were standardised, then the same number was kept whenever they changed units.

[Janice M]

Thank you. I did not know that, but it's good to know.

Janice