Purles of wisdom... Part 1

One thing I especially like about family history, is what else you learn along the way about other aspects of history, particularly on subjects you'd not ordinarily go out of your way to research.



     Richard Mott Viner, born 1809      
           Eliza's eldest brother     

This was the case with an ancestor of my husband's, Eliza Mott Viner, born in 1824 in Bath. The "Mott" part of her name dates back to a maiden name from the previous century in a place called Ogbourne St Andrew, in Wiltshire and continues to pop up as a middle name in different branches of the family for the next 150 years, which has often been extremely useful for making connections.

But I digress. The Mott trail is a different story altogether. This one centres on the family into which Eliza marries, and their connection with bows and arrows, and all things archery or, if you prefer, toxophily - a new word on me and the start of my education on the subject.

Sadly, I don't have a photograph of Eliza, only of her eldest brother Richard, taken in 1875, aged 66.

Eliza married William Frederick Purle, in Bath in 1844. William, born in 1821, was a "manufacturer of archery", as was his father, James Purle.

William and Eliza appear on the 1861 census, living at 4 Somerset Buildings in Walcot, Bath,

 

along with their children, Frederick aged 15, Alice 11, Laura 9, Harry 6 and Walter 3. William's occupation is recorded there also as a manufacturer of archery and it looks as though 15 year old Frederick is apprenticed to the trade.

William is also listed in the 1860-1865 Bath Post Office Directory as one of the city's archery dealers, at the same address as in the census, along with others: John Fare, S.C. Silverstone and Joseph Somerton, all trading in different parts of the city. It's noted that both our William and Mr Fare, as well as dealers, were also manufacturers and teachers.

An advertisement for his wares appear in the Bath Chronicle & Weekly Gazette, during 1864 and 1865, as well as in the Western Daily Press, Bristol, in 1865.

But it appears that William Purle only traded in Bath for a relatively short period in the 1860s.

During my initial research about the Purle family as archery manufacturers, I came across a mention of a particular arrow being made by "Purle of London". Indeed records suggest that William and Eliza left Bath for London immediately after their marriage, as their eldest son, Frederick was born in Marylebone a year later, in 1845, and their daughter Alice's birth was also registered there in 1850.

At this point, however, things begin to get confusing.

Despite William citing his birthplace on the 1861 census as "Somerset, Bath", he appears on the 1841 census, aged 20, living in London, with his father James and mother Elizabeth, and being born in the county of Middlesex. James is also apparently Middlesex born, though Elizabeth is not. William's occupation isn't given but his father James is recorded as a "bowyer" which is backed up by an entry in the 1841 edition of The London Post Office Directory as being "Purle James, bow and arrow maker" at 15 Stephen Street, off Tottenham Court Road.

There is a baptism record of a William, parents James and Elizabeth Purle in St Anne's, Westminster in 1821 which would seem to confirm his birthplace is London and not Somerset, but this James is recorded as being a coachman, rather than a bowyer. Is that because he'd not yet begun his career as an archery manufacturer or is this a different James? A James "Wilson" (possibly William?) Purle of around the same age, shows up on the 1851 census in Marylebone, Middlesex as being born in "Somersetshire", with wife Elizabeth (born 1801 in Herefordshire), and with sons Henry, Charles and Robert. Frustratingly, James's occupation is not noted. Henry is a carpenter, Charles is a coach trimmer and Robert is learning the same trade. Of course by now, their elder son William (if this is indeed our William's parents) is married to Eliza Mott Viner by now and living in.... where? Probably London, seeing as Alice was born there in 1850, though I haven't yet found the family recorded. The 1851 London census does have gaps, so perhaps this is the reason I've failed to track them down.

As to William's assertion in the 1861 census that he was Bath born, while it's not impossible that he was born in Bath and baptised in London, it may be that he felt that as he was trading in the city, it was commercially prudent to present himself as being a local!

So was William and Eliza's return to Bath an attempt to expand the trade beyond London? Was it something to do with Eliza's family, the Viners? It's worth noting here that it was around the 1860s that Eliza's brother, Richard Mott Viner (pictured above) moved to London with his family along with his parents Richard and Mary Ann Viner. Richard was a carpenter and Richard Mott was a tailor. Exact dates as to when they relocated are difficult to establish because both the 1851 and 1861 census lists seem to be missing many of the relevant Viners and Purles!

And so back to London once more, it seems, (for the moment, anyway) and evidence that the Purle's reputation in the archery trade was flourishing. Arthur Credland, the editor of the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, tells me that a certain James Duff (1870-1935) who had nearly fifty years' experience in archery, making longbows and arrows with the famous makers of the 19th century, said in his book on the subject: "During all the many years I was in London, the finest arrow maker known to me was Harry Purle."

It so happens that Eliza and William did have a son called Harry - Harry Richard Purle, to be exact, born in Leamington, in 1855. In fact there appears to be a key link back to Leamington - the two younger sons of William and Eliza's were born there.

Interestingly, in September 1860, there was a "group" baptism of all the Purle children except for Frederick (whose baptism had already taken place in Marylebone), in Leamington Priors (see left). So why here? Was archery big in Leamington and they'd moved there for the trade? There's certainly a street called Archery Street and I also came across an illustration of an Archery Competition in 1852 which took place in Jephson Gardens, a location renowned for entertainment of all sorts.

On contacting the Leamington History Group, their secretary kindly replied to inform me that, yes, Leamington was a major centre for Archery in the mid-Victorian period and for many years the National Championships were held there.

So did the Purle family supply the famous toxophilites of Leamington? Did they move there only for commercial reasons or did they have other links to the town? And another critical question came to light just as I thought that Eliza and William's son must be the famous Harry Purle, mentioned in James Duff's book, when I stumbled upon the death of Harry Richard Purle in 1881, aged only 26. What happened to him - did he have a nasty accident with a bow an arrow?

I'm afraid you'll have to wait for Part 2 to find out, as for now my investigations continue...

****************************************

 

 

If you want to look up ancestors who had a trade, a selection of Trade Directories of several areas of the country can be accessed online at Leicester University's Special Collection 

*****************************************

 

 

Regular readers of this blog know that the distinguished Mr C J Vincent, pictured left, is a mystery man in the centre of my search-n-find radar.

The good news is that thanks to an online Q&A session with Ancestry Hour a couple of weeks ago, Tom of Forces War Records, identified (from his cap-badge in the photograph) that our man served in WW1's Tank Corps. This
has given me an exciting new line of enquiry, though, as ever, it's slow progress.

But as soon as there's something worth reporting, you'll be the first to know!

Mystery unravelling... slowly

Isn't often the way when you're looking for something, you'll find something else you'd been hunting for previously.

 

So was the case recently while I was snatching a few minutes on my latest challenge - trying to unmask the identity of this distinguished young man, which, I have to confess, has become a bit of an obsession lately.

The note on the back of the photograph scribbled by my late aunt, tells me he was Vincent Talbot but such a person appears not to exist - I certainly haven't been able to find him on my family tree.

When I posted the picture on Twitter, an eagle-eyed "Tweeter" noticed that the signature on the front seemed to suggest that his name was not Vincent Something but Something Vincent - perhaps C J Vincent?

If I had any military knowledge, I might be able to narrow things down a little by identifying his regiment by his uniform (to an untrained eye, his long boots suggest a cavalry connection?), particularly by his cap badge.

But although I've scanned in the photo at the highest resolution I can, there's a limit to the clarity I can achieve for comparing it against cap badge images online, though I suspect an expert would probably recognise it easily.

Meanwhile I continue to trawl whenever I can, on the off-chance I'll stumble across its like eventually.




So what's this about finding something I wasn't looking for while on the "Vincent" case, I hear you ask?

Well, it was while studying the confusing note on the back of the photograph that something occurred to me about another unsolved family mystery.

My aunt had originally written that "Vincent" was "Nell Booth's brother" but this had been crossed out in favour of "Polly's son" and then under a piece of added sticky label, I could make out "Minnie's cousin", followed by another suggestion, "Nell's son", amended to read "Polly's son... I think." (Is it any wonder I'm confused!)

Polly would have been Polly Benbow Baugh, pictured here on the right,  the younger sister of my great-grandmother Sarah Eliza Baugh.

Polly married George Augustus Talbot in 1894 and they had two daughters: Mabel Maud in 1895 and Anna Helena in 1896. I've failed to find the family on the 1901 census but George was born in Capetown in South Africa perhaps they'd been abroad visiting family during the census.

Notes on the back of the photograph on the left suggests this is Polly pictured with her "young son". Was this "Vincent" as a baby?

The problem is that I've only managed to find the births of the two girls and not of a son, though as the family had South African connections, perhaps he was born overseas.

Besides, I'm inclined to agree with my fellow Tweeter that Vincent is a surname and as such could well have no connection with my family at all!

It was then I homed in on the name Nell. Who was Nell? And where had I seen that name before?

Another ferret through my photograph collection unearthed a young woman in a wedding dress, on the reverse of which was written, "Nell, Polly's daughter."

Another conundrum. Polly's daughters were called Mabel Maud and Anna Helena... but maybe...

A quick check in my trusty Oxford dictionary of names, told me that Nell can be a shortened version of Helen or Helena. So this young woman known as Nell surely has to be Anna Helena Talbot.

That's when the penny dropped through the proverbial treacle.

If you've read this blog before, you might recall the post The Mystery of 138 photographs, in which I begin with a photograph of an unknown young woman called Nellie, taken in 1918. If you look closely at the photo on the right and compare it to the one of Nellie below, from that blog post, I think you'll agree it's the same person.

Anna Helena "Nell" Talbot married Herbert Booth in 1918, a few months after this photograph was taken, in Nantwich, Cheshire.

So, one mystery solved, at least! Now back to Mr Vincent...

A brush with death

With 2015 being 70 years since the end of the Second World War, this month sees a particularly poignant anniversary - that of the last Nazi bomb attack responsible for civilian deaths. On 27th March 1945 a V2 rocket (the world's first guided ballistic missile) hit London's East End, killing 135 people, the second worst V2 strike on London, in terms of lives lost. One final V2 would fall later that day in Orpington, Kent killing one person.

London, of course, had already suffered the horrifying effects of mass incendiary bombs at the start of the infamous 'Blitz' (a word derived from the German for 'lightning war') and many other British cities would be targeted, including Coventry, a city not so far from Wednesfield, near Wolverhampton where my mother lived with her family during the war.

The devastation in Coventry in 1940

Although bombing raids on Wolverhampton were nowhere as frequent as in Coventry and Birmingham, the risk was considered great enough to install anti-aircraft guns on the edge of the city after the horrific and infamous attack on Coventry in November 1940, and provision had already been made for air-raid shelters.

My mum used to talk about the warning sirens and the drills at school, diving under their desks and the carrying of gas masks. Under the family's house in Wednesfield was a cellar – a small, damp and dingy space at the bottom of a flight of brick steps which ran underneath the stairs – which served as their own air-raid shelter. But on the day disaster struck, no one was using it.

Why Mum and the family were not in the cellar at the time isn't clear. As Wolverhampton appeared

My mum (right) and her sister

not to be a target in the same way as neighbouring cities, perhaps the adults had become jaded about disrupting their sleep to sit in a cold hole in the ground for no apparent benefit.

But whatever the reason, at some point in the evening, with Mum fast asleep in bed and the adults still downstairs, the house took a hit from a rogue incendiary bomb.

My grandmother, Wyn, rushed upstairs into my mum's bedroom which was at the back of the house above the living room. The bomb had come through the roof and landed at the bottom of Mum's bed, setting the floor alight. Having pulled Mum out of bed, Gran dragged the heavy feather mattress on to the burning floor-boards to smother the flames before scooping Mum up and carrying her downstairs.



Mum's wartime ID card

The fire would eventually burn its way through to the ground floor and land on the piano below but not before Gran was able to bustle Mum into the kitchen at the end of a corridor to the rear of the house. She dumped her on a chair and wrapped her in the old mac used for visiting the outside privy in the rain.

By now Mum could hear shouting as help arrived and very quickly the fire was extinguished before it could take hold, aided, no doubt, by Gran's quick thinking with the feather bed. Another house in the street had been similarly attacked and the assumption was that a German bomber had jettisoned what was left of its load as it headed for home.

As children, my sister and I loved to hear this story, particularly when visiting my Gran's house, as the heart-shaped repair in the plaster where the bomb had come through the ceiling was still clearly visible.

Mum said that the overwhelming memory of that night was shivering at the unwelcome chill of the cold mac Gran had draped around her to keep her warm, as she sat in the kitchen in her nightdress. But I'm sure, rather than the mac, it was the shock of the incident which caused her to shiver!

 

******************************************************************************

An excellent and detailed account can be found of Coventry's blitz (including other aspects of the city's history) on the Historic Coventry website.

Images of the London Blitz,  "Germany's Campaign of Terror over London", can be viewed on the All Day.com website.

 

 

 

Unravelling who's who - the groom

OK, blog readers. You're going to work for your supper this time. I need some help here!

 

This year I set myself the challenge of working out who's who in this wonderful wedding photograph. The likelihood of identifying everyone pictured is extremely remote, of course, but it would be lovely to put some names to faces, at least. I have a few notes, albeit rather vague ones, plus a few other photographs, to get me started.

 

So... first off - the groom.

 

Underneath a photocopy of the picture, my late aunt had written,

"Groom and Bride 

Arthur & Lillian

or John & Lizzie. (It looks very much like John)"

The 'John' to whom she refers is her grandfather, my great-grandfather, John Griffiths, or Jack as he was more often known, born in 1861. Arthur, born 1872, was her great uncle, John's youngest
brother - sons of Jabez and Mary Ann Griffiths (nee Dukes).

Clue One: Comparing faces.

Here are Jack and Arthur photographed together (date unknown). Jack is seated.

Brothers John and Arthur Griffiths

The close-ups:

John (Jack), from photo above                                     - the groom -                                           Arthur, from photo above

 Mmmm. Looking at this evidence, the groom looks much more like John than Arthur.

Clue Two: The wedding date.

 

John married Sarah Eliza "Lizzie" Baugh in 1894. Arthur married Lillian Clay in 1903.

 

According to Jayne Shrimpton's excellent book How to Get the Most from Family Pictures, a white tie or bow tie became the norm for men at weddings and other formal occasions during the 1890s, as can be seen in this photograph.

 

For women, elaborate lace and frills on bodices were becoming popular, as were increasingly decorative hats with flowers, ribbons and feathers, along with ever wider brims.

 

On the other hand, the trend for vast hats continued into the next decade and, to quote Jayne, "Bridal styles in fact varied widely during the early 1900s", and having studied the examples in her book and on the internet, it's clear that wedding fashions merge during this period, making it harder to differentiate. Even the clothes of the elder ladies give no real clue as they would be more suited to wearing styles from their own era and men's conventions continue much the same as before.

 

 

So if the fashions of the wedding guests can't help, I would have to return to the photographs and conclude that the marriage is of John Griffiths and Sarah Eliza Baugh.

 

 

However, there's one small fly in the ointment. Why did my aunt limit her suppositions to only two possibilities? All in all, Jabez and Mary Ann Griffiths had seven sons. For all I know, it could be any of them!

 

 

So, dear readers, what do you make of it? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

Meanwhile, I'd better get back on the case. Perhaps the other brothers never married...

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery children and missing siblings

The headstone of Thomas Shelley (d.1881) and
his wife Bessey (d.1877) in Claverley churchyard.

This week I've been tracking the wayward offspring of my 3x great-grandparents Thomas and Bessey Shelley, who lived in Staffordshire and Shropshire.

Thomas and Bessey (nee Holland) married in 1840 and in the 1841 census, were living in Cheswadine, Shropshire along with Thomas's widowed mother, Phoebe.

By 1851, they're residing in Adbaston in Staffordshire and have a sizable family -

Emma, aged 9 (my great-great grandmother)
William, aged 7
Mary Ann, aged 6
Eliza, aged 5
Martha, aged 3
and Joanna, aged 1

 

Move on 10 years and the family is scattered. Emma is servant at a farm near Market Drayton, Thomas appears to be working away from home (on census night, at least) as a farm bailiff and Bessey is on her own with Eliza in Church Aston, Shropshire. I'm uncertain about William's whereabouts - it's possible he could be working as an apprentice. But I could find no census record for Martha, Joanna or Mary Ann.

It's common knowledge that childhood in Victorian England was a precarious existence so I checked the death registers and sadly, found both Joanna, who died aged 6 in 1858 and Mary Ann who died in 1860, aged 15. There's also the death of a William Shelley listed in 1859 but as there are several William Shelleys, without further information, I don't know yet if he's Thomas and Bessey's son.

But at least, Martha is alive and well, as she pops up again on the 1871 census back home with her parents in Claverley, Shropshire. Although she gives her surname as Shelley, she'd actually married Charles Dawber in 1868 and has her daughter with her (10 month old Rosa Vida Dawber) who is listed as grand-daughter to Thomas, head of the family.

Also back in the fold is Emma, along with her illegitimate son, my great-grandfather George, aged 1, and there are two new additions to the family, Mary J C, aged 9, and grand-daughter, Agnes, aged 5. But who are Agnes's parents? There's no sign of Eliza, though she may be working away from home. (An Eliza Shelley of the correct age is listed as a servant in a village called Moseley near Brewood, Staffordshire but no place of birth is recorded for her to cross reference.)

 

By 1881, Emma has left home to marry George Wenlock, leaving little George behind with her parents, presumably because Mr Wenlock is not prepared to take on a son who is not his own. But by 1881 Thomas is now a widower, as Bessey died in 1877, the year after Emma got married.

George, aged 11, and Agnes, now 15 are listed, not as grandchildren though, but as son and daughter to Thomas. And another daughter is now back in residence - Eliza - presumably returned to help look after the family following her mother's death. Mary J C, who would now be 19, does not appear. Perhaps she married, though I haven't located her yet.

As I discovered a few months ago (see blog post Out of the woodwork and on to the tree), Emma had another illegitimate son called Charles, born in 1873, who was adopted by a local family. And it transpires that she was not the only sister to have a child out of wedlock, as Agnes's birth certificate shows that her mother was the unmarried Martha Shelley. No father is recorded.

Like George Wenlock, it seems Charles Dawber was not prepared to take on another man's daughter and Martha has no option but to leave Agnes in the care of her parents when she married.

If the William listed in the death records was Thomas and Bessey's son, it would mean that Thomas and Bessey lost a child on three consecutive years. Even if it wasn't, losing Joanna and then Mary Ann, would be traumatic enough. Did their loss influence their decision to take on the illegitimate offspring of their daughters? Or did they do so simply out of a sense of duty?

I'm not yet clear as to the parentage of Mary "J C". Although she's recorded as a daughter in the 1881 census, Bessey would have been 46 when she was born. While that's perfectly feasible, I do wonder, given that the 1881 census records George and Agnes as son and daughter when we know they weren't, whether Mary J C's mother wasn't Bessey at all. And if not, who was she?

I can see I've got more digging to do before this muddle is unravelled!

 

 

 



A poignant Christmas list

 

Merry Christmas 1948

 

  

According to the small pocket diary my mum kept in 1948, when she was 13 years old, her Christmas presents were a handbag, a film book, a pair of fur gloves, a paint box, the novel 'Little Women', six hankies and two brooches.

(Most 13 year olds these days would be baffled as to why receiving six paper tissues constituted a Christmas present!)

The paint box in the list reminds me of a story Mum told of when she entered a painting competition (perhaps using this very box of paints). Having carefully completed her work of art, she was mortified when she knocked over the water pot and it flooded the picture. One of the adults came to her rescue (she lived with her mother, grandparents and an aunt) and managed to mop up the worst, creating an interesting effect across the sky. When she won the competition, she was convinced the disastrous flood had actually improved the painting!

It was no surprise to see 'film book' on the list. Mum was an avid cinema goer. Her diary is littered with names of the films she'd been to see. Sometimes with a comment added, other times with no indication as to whether she'd enjoyed it or not. For Great Expectations, though, which she'd seen earlier that year, she's shared her thoughts. Very frightening, she'd written. Not keen. I know which bit frightened her as she told me about it years later - it was when the convict emerged from behind a gravestone in the churchyard, grabbed young Pip and demanded food, having escaped from one of the rotting hulks moored in the Thames, waiting to be transported to Australia.

Mum's father, Herbert Colley, or Kendal Barton as he was more commonly known (his stage name), was a theatre actor. He often played the part of The Dame during the panto season.

My aunt, Mum's elder sister, recalled him making a puppet theatre for the girls from a box on its side, with cut-out characters glued on to long strips of cardboard. These characters would enter 'stage right' and 'stage left' by sliding them through a gap in the box sides to play out a panto story to an invited audience.

It was something that, in turn, my mum did with my sister and I, and we would spend hours making the theatre and the players associated with whatever pantomime we'd chosen to enact. As I recall, the joy was as much in the making as the performance.


Whatever your Christmas presents contain this year, and whether or not you'll be enjoying a pantomime, either visited or created, do have a very

Happy Christmas

 

and a successful 2015 in your family history searching.


I look forward to sharing more of my stories with you in the coming year.

 

More questions than answers

My grandfather, (Ernest) George Shelley

With Armistice Day upon us, it seemed appropriate to dig out the bundle of my grandfather's WW1 service records. As most WW1 service records were lost in bombings during WW2, I know I'm fortunate in having what documents and photographs that I do.

Soldier's little brown Pay Book

One of the most treasured items is his original Soldiers' Service and Pay Book. A small brown notebook with a hard cover, it has a pocket in the back in which I found various slips of paper relating to demob clothes, ID certificates and pay allowances. In the front of the book is his name (Ernest George Shelley, always known as George), his trade (blacksmiths striker) and his unit (Sherwood Foresters).





I also have several group photographs of him with his unit, including this of him and colleagues in full uniform...

Granddad is standing on the far right

 ...and in shirt sleeves with bayonetted rifles on display...

Seated, far right, middle row.

... as well as portraits of him in uniform, seated as well as standing.

I also have a collection of postcards my granddad had written home. They were all dated 1918 and postmarked Newcastle upon Tyne. Some were addressed to his mother and others to my grandmother (they weren't yet married and didn't do so until 1921). Many show views of Whitley Bay but others depict a place called Backworth.

In his correspondence he talks of receiving (or more often, not receiving!) letters or parcels and says he'll learn more soon about where he is to be sent.

But having imagined that with all this information it would be easy to piece together his role in the war, I realised on closer inspection that what was there only told a patchy story.

First of all I noticed in his service book that the date of enlistment was given as April 1918. Surely he'd joined up before then? Yes, he had. A ragged postcard, dated 11^th December 1915, stated that he'd been 'attested' (enlisted) and transferred to the army reserve until required for service. So what had happened then? And why hadn't it been recorded  in his service book?

As I studied the photographs of my granddad in uniform, I realised that the cap badges weren't all the same. I scoured through the remaining paperwork and discovered his demob certificate, which confirmed that while he had indeed been in the 1^st Battalion Notts and Derby regiment (also known as the Sherwood Foresters) when he'd originally joined up, he'd been in the South Staffordshire regiment.

Now this is where it gets complicated. According to the Staffordshire Regiment's website, the South Staffs had only two battalions, 1st and 2nd. But on further investigation, it seems there was a plethora of other battalions within the regular army, plus the territorials and the 'new armies', as well as other service, reserve and labour battalions.

The 3rd (reserve) ended up in November 1916 in Forest Hall, Newcastle - the post mark on my granddad's postcards - and at least one battalion of The Sherwood Foresters also ended up in Newcastle. Did he transfer there? Were the regiments merged? As I'm no aficionado on the British Army and its structure, I suspect it will take me while to unravel the implications of this confusing information!

However I can leave you with one final snippet of intrigue.

When I returned to my granddad's service book, I noticed the name 'Boesinghe' (a village north of Ypes where battles had taken place earlier in the war) and the words '284 P.O.W. Company'. This suggested to me that my granddad could have been guarding prisoners of war.

However when I posted a photograph of him (with his service details) on the Postcard Photos of the Notts & Derbyshire Regiment's Facebook Page  a kind contributor confirmed the 284 P.O.W. Company information I'd read in his records, but added that my granddad was in 'B' company and would have been posted to Abancourt, France.

A browse on the internet suggests that Abancourt did have a prison, but that it was a military prison, holding soldiers charged with insubordination, mutiny and desertion - which would include those poor unfortunates awaiting execution for "cowardice".

Was this where my grandfather was posted? I think I need the assistance of a military expert! 

My search for information continues...

********************************************

If you'd like to research your own WW1 ancestors, a good place to start is the Tracing World War 1 Family History page of The Great War 1914-1918 website, www.greatwar.co.uk, which lists the places where you might find the information you need (nothwithstanding that large gap in records I mention at the start of this post).

The National Archives also has information on the relevant records it holds on its WW1 page.

If you have ancestors who were in The Sherwood Foresters, you might like  also to check out the Postcard Photos of the Notts & Derbyshire Regiment's Facebook Page.

The BBC have set up an interactive page 'I wonder about WW1' taking you through various routes to uncover information about your WW1 ancestor.