Genealogy Forum UK

Anybody who has being involved in Genealogy for a while will experience, or hear of, "long shots" where vital clues to a brick wall appear against incredible odds.
Unfortunately most of the British WWI records were detroyed during a German bombing raid in 1940.
My Granfather Dodd's records were one of them.
So I was having a hard time finding out about what units he served with etc.
Being part of the Royal Field Artillery, his Medal Card does not give much information as they were re-assigned all over the place.
After trying for many hours to find out anything I could about his exploits in WWI I finally gave up in frustration and turned to my wife's Grandfather's record.
In Australia you can download the records in high resolution scans free of charge.
As I was looking though the dozens of pages of his record I came across the embarkation list for one of the troop ships taking soldiers back to the UK in 1919.
From England they would be mustered and embark a ship that would to transport them back to their homeland.
However, the embarkation from France was first in, best dressed.
So Canadians would line up with British and Australian soldiers and give their name, unit and nationality to a clerk who would type it up for the records.
I looked at the embarkation record for my wife's Australian Grandad and he was not on the page in his record.
But my English Grandad was and from that I got what unit he was assigned to in 1919.
So some clerk back in 1919 put the wrong page in my wifes Grandad's record that just happened to have my Grandad on it!!

Think of the odds of both of them being on the same ship.

Then think of the odds of that mistake by the clerk in 1919 being noticed by the grandson of one of the English soldiers on the list.

Well! What a find! Well done.
Jo

Wow! That's incredible Mark.
I wonder if any other members have experienced these 'Long Shots' ?

There was the one where my 8G grandfather, William Perry's will just happened to be the sample on the National Archives Wills web page.

What can I say? Had you previously found his will Di or was that the first time you saw it?

I have had similar things happen a few times; many years ago I was sat in the archives section in Dudley Library (as it then was) when someone telephoned and spoke to the archivist - as she repeated the names they corresponded to the documents I was looking at - it turned out we descended from the same 3xgt grandparents and got in touch through this.
About 5 years ago I was again in the same archives (now at Coseley) and noticed the names someone was writing down next to me (I am not nosy!, but the woman and her husband were discussing them) -it turned out to be another distant cousin, who I had been corresponding with on the internet for months.

There are advantages to having family lines, like my Ford, Cutler and Homer relatives, who have moved about two miles in 400 years

I don't thinkI will bump into many Black Country relatives in my local libraries of Genealogical societies....

mallosa wrote:What can I say? Had you previously found his will Di or was that the first time you saw it?

I didn't even know it existed, before that, Mally. My eye was attracted by his name and then when I looked at the document, I started to recognise other names. It was quite comprehensive and helped to fill in some further relationships as well as giving me an idea of how the family was living at the time. Great stuff!

Can this be archived Mark?
Jo