Help with Scottish Regt Please.

[Andy J2022]

Hi Calleva,

I agree with Jim that having a spearate thread for your query  is likely to be less confusing.

Turning to your questions. First of all you need to find out how to post the photograph you mention. I suspect it was too large to accepted by the forum software. Read this thread for some tips on how to re-size an image.

I assume that you have all the details about him in the 1891 census, his marriage in 1913 and his death in 1940.

You then asked about any details of your grandfather's service, beyond what you know from the Morayshire Roll of Honour. Nothing shows up on FindMyPast using the bare details of his number, name and his two units. However one of the reasons for this is that around 65% of all service records from the First World War have not survived. That said 19,691 records for soldiers from the Seaforth Highlanders, and 46,926 for the A&SH did survive. 

The second is that middle names were frequently not recorded and just looking at the rest of that page on the Morayshire Roll of Honour there are nine other John Smiths recorded. Even just within the Seaforth Highlanders there are 39 entries or documents for 'John Smith', and 125 for the A&SH.

The next issue you need to be aware of is his service number.  Prior to 1917 each regiment issued its own numbers, and often duplicates of the same number might be found in both its Regular and Territorial Force battalions¹. The number for JC Smith recorded in the Roll of Honour (27445) will refer to one of the two regiments he served in, quite possibly from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Both Regiments restarted their numbering at 1 in 1908, and by September 1914, when JC Smith enlisted, none of the battalions in either Regiment had reached the figure of 27400. That said the numbers were not always issued sequentially, but even taking that into consideration I don't think 27445 was his number when he first joined the Seaforth Highlanders. From 1917 all members of the Territorial Force units (that is, those not in the regular 1st and 2nd battalions of both Regiments) were issued with new 6 figure numbers², and so, because the Roll of Honour uses the five figure number, I think it's reasonable to assume that either he was discharged (possibly due to injuries) before the new numbering came in, or that he was serving in one of the Regular battalions of the A&SH at the end of the war, while keeping his old number. Of course it's possible that whoever compiled the Roll of Honour based the entry on some documentation which only recorded his pre-1917 number.

Perhaps someone with access to the medal rolls on Ancestry will do a look up to see if he shows up under that number on the A&SH rolls. Often the medal rolls show both old and new numbers for TF soldiers.I haven't been able to find a medal index card for him using 27445.

(With reference to Jim's most recent comment) Since I don't have any specific information about your grandffather I'll post this comment in the old thread for now, but save a copy to go in the new thread once it's available.)


Footnotes.
1. There was a Pte Francis Smith 27445 in the West Yorkshire Regiment.
2. For example the 8th Battalion A&SH were issued a block of numbers 3000,001 to 325,000.