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Sapper Mason


Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 333
Location: ANGLESEY
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Excuse the partial message , i pressed the wrong button i think! . Thanks to Alan & Peter for sorting out my details and enabling me to enter the forum . Smile My query is two fold this time round .

Firstly does anyone know if there were ANY Royal Enginers aboard the TS " SS St Lawrence " when it run aground on the way to South Africa with the Buffs aboard and amongst those onboard was Sgt Frederick Augustus Millne. NEXT what confimation is there that buried close to Pte William Jones VC in an unmarked grave is another Rorke's drift defender , one Pte Joshua Lodge? . I have often read about these two being buried near each other but as to the actual confirmation i am somewhat in the dark , any help please , Thank you , Graham .
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ANDY LEE


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 167
Location: Bournville,West Midlands, UK
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Sapper

Private Lodge is buried in the next section to William Jones VC at Phillip's park, Manchester. If you take a look at the entry for Private Lodge on the 'Keynsham Light Horse' website it shows the area of the Cemetery.

I'm trying to establish if the plaque to William Jones VC is still on the chapel wall in Phillip's Park.

Andy
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Alan
Site Admin

Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 1530
Location: Wales
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The plaque was removed but is now back in place, along with the Stringer VC plaque.

Alan
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ANDY LEE


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 167
Location: Bournville,West Midlands, UK
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Thanks Alan
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Sapper Mason


Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 333
Location: ANGLESEY
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Thank you for letting me know about Pte Lodge , i was trying to ascertain what documentation there is available to confirm in fact that the person refered to is indeed ex-Pte Lodge as i have read many times that Lodge is buried close to William JONES VC .

I ask both William Hitch & Peter Hitch to contact me again at my home contact , as stated in 2004 i am trying to build a complete as possible background to FRED and am not trying to annoy any member of the HITCH family , if you recall i was responsible for getting FRED a Blue Plaque and anyone who was in Chiswick on Jan 25th 2004 will know i did it for FRED and his family and anyone related to FRED was welcome that day . Just recently i have discovered that FRED had 11 children and not 10 as i thought at first , steps are being taken to obtain the necessary document (s ) as i speak .

I am also trying to locate the mother in law of FRED ( Matilda Susan Meurisse ) as i have found out that she was a widow and when her husband died . I say again to William and Peter HITCH i am only interested in finding out for all the right reasons as many facts on FRED as possible and not interfere in their lives , i have a very good working relationship with the HITCH family in London and stilll do , i hope Jan 25th 2004 proved my point , thank you , Graham .
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TonyJones


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 188
Location: Essex
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Dear Graham,
good question about Joshua Lodge. This type of open question is to be encouraged as it moves research forward-a dynamic and ongoing process. You are quite entitled to ask this on a moral, ethical and legal basis as knowledge about AZW matters is an open forum which can be challenged and questioned by anybody.
There ia a database in existence as to who is buried in Philip's Park Cemetery, the contact number is on the gates of the cemetery. If you call 0161 7405359 you will find the staff more than helpful in aiding you with your enquiry as they have access to all persons buried or cremated in Manchester. If you state the persons name and year that they were buried they can check on the database and answer your question,much better than the method that I used recently of spending a cold Saturday morning
physically searching for the Lodge and Stringer graves with a brisk northerly wind in my face and tears in my eyes. Best of luck with your research.

Tony.
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TonyJones


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 188
Location: Essex
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Dear Graham,
as you seem to ask a lot of questions on here,here's a list of websites that you can use for your research:

Free Birth Marriages and Deaths
Free Census
Family Search

These are free sites.

Pay-per-view sites:

Ancestry.com
1837online.com
1901 Census online.com

It is our government that owns the copyright on this material and you are free to view this and compose your own accounts of any individual that you research there.You can quote facts about any individual that you research,that is not the province of any one writer or researcher but you can not paraphrase previous accounts,which is after all an opinion or viewpoint, written by any authors,that is plaigarism.
About 5 years ago people did not have easy access to these records and had to rely on oral accounts by interviewing individuals-a not always accurate account of events as 'tales' tend to get 'embellished' over time,a common fault with a 'narrator' version of events.With such acts as 'The Freedom of Information Acts' and 'Human Rights Acts' now anybody can research information about AZW matters and publish their own works.Before it was the domain of a select few.This information explosion will lead to more accurate accounts about the lives of individuals and is a good thing for AZW related matters.All the best.

Tony.
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Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 1797
Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England.
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Tony

While congratulating all concerned on the progress with Joshua Lodge & others, might I gently correct any misconception which could just arise from your posting of yesterday.

The websites you mention all refer to the records of civil registration, the census, or parish registers. These records are no more in the public domain now than they have ever been, as census records more than 100 years old have always been freely available to the public without charge and the indexes to births, marriages & deaths in Eng & Wales have always been available to the public free of charge, other than a search fee of a few shillings which was administered at Somerset House until the late 1960s. The County Record Office system and public library system in this country have ensured maximum availability.

The Freedom of Information Act and the Human Rights Act have had no effect whatsoever on the increased accessibility of these records. Indeed the HRA and the Data Protection Act have had the very opposite effect, particularly with the records of 20th century civil registration, although not as much as had been feared. It certainly ISN'T true to say that researchers have had to rely on oral accounts previously, or that in recent years they have had more access to these records. The explosion of interest in family history research in the English-speaking world since the 1960s has meant that genealogy has been one of the most popular hobbies in the Commonwealth - & certainly in the UK - over the last 35/40 years, and on any one day at any time during this period many thousands of ordinary people would be researching an individual or a family.

The websites you mention have been developed as a result of new indexing methods brought about by modern technology, making it possible for enquirers to search indexes more conveniently, and by the internet, which brings them into our homes. I emphasise the word "indexes." As you'll know, one still has to purchase the cert from the GRO to discover the necessary details and one certainly should still examine the original census schedule rather than rely on the online indexed transcript - ESPECIALLY in the case of the 1901 online site, which was transcribed & input in Sri Lanka (78%) and by "guests" of HM in UK (22%), hence the unacceptably high incidence of errors and ommissions. (Have a look at the number of families now surnamed "Ditto"!) And the caveats relating to the "Familysearch" site are so well known as to hardly need repeating.

You are quite right in pointing out the availability of these sites, but long before they arrived the "hoi polloi" were already beavering away in their millions in this country - as well as in NZ, Australia, Canada, RSA and the US - among British records. Genealogical research was by no means the preserve of a "select few." What has transpired, of course (coincidentally? - I doubt it) is a plummetting in the standards of research generally during the last decade or so, as the desire to solve everything while sitting in front of a screen, or to ignore the golden rule of always going back to the original source, has increasingly been overlooked to the inevitable detriment of the accuracy of the work accomplished. This is something the Society of Genealogists, Federation of Family History Societies and other member organisations are trying hard to rectify through education, while still continuing to harness the benefits of new technology.

What the sites do provide - sometimes - is the possibility of making quick rough searches which can throw up something which otherwise may have taken much longer (as long as nothing one comes across on the website itself is ever taken as fact before the primary source has been examined).

I hope these notes are helpful. Best of luck with Lodge and the others.

Peter
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TonyJones


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 188
Location: Essex
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Dear Peter,
thanks for the tips,whilst at the novice stage,the stage i am currently at in AZW matters,i 'will' make mistakes,much better to do that than be afraid of 'dipping ones toes in the water'.The jist of my message was about accessibility,it is now easier for an individual to access information about AZW individuals,via the internet,than it was in the past.
My reference to oral accounts probably relates to my research and experiences about 593 Private William Jones VC,where what i have read previously about my ancestors does indeed seem to rely on oral accounts,to a certain extent.
Whilst i agree that it is necessary and important to obtain the relevant birth,marriage and death certificates,sometimes even these are not reliable,the person that i spoke to at the GRO when i had a query was to take what you read on them with a pinch of salt,as the information that i read on one certificate,missed the mark by a mile.This is why the Jones descendants are now involved in the measure of taking DNA tests to chart the 'Y Jones Chromosome',much more accurate and worthwhile than the old-fashioned method of obtaining certificates,for proof of descendancy at least.A fool-proof way of any descendant validating their claim in the case of 'other circumstances' that may have brought about their existence(see my advice and experiences in the genealogy section of this site).
Whilst i agree about the reliability about family search site etc ancestry.com is bang up-to-date enabling the subscriber to view the original census returns,a good aid on days when it is impossible to travel,due to restricted time or illness.I refer to the 'select few' in reference to the small number of writers that were writing about this specialist subject in the past i.e. AZW matters,and how new technology has given people who previously may not have written about the subject,the confidence to write about a subject that is important and dear to them.
There's no dispute that genealogy has always been a popular hobby or research aid,but even now,the numbers of individuals who are engaged in this pursuit far outnumbers the amount of people that have been involved in the subject in the time-frame that you mentioned.It seems that all the books that i have read on AZW matters do present somewhat of a moving-target of information with a core amount of facts which are correct but another percentage of data that does seem to change over a period of time as new facts are uncovered.This would be natural in any field as it progresses.
I am in agreement about the thoroughness of the methods that you mention,as these methods will lead to accurate information being relayed to the reader.In the meantime it's great to get a reaction from a seasoned veteran like yourself,and that there are poeple like yourself around who can correct errors with confidence.I'll check the human rights and freedom of information info out as i do remember reading somewhere that it has had an affect on these matters,not in the areas you mention,but elsewhere.
All the best.

Tony.
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Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 1797
Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England.
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Tony

Thanks for clarifying several points - I wholeheartedly agree with much of your post today. (I try never to miss an opportunity to labour the point about primary sources!)

The advice you've received about taking the info on B,D & M certs with a pinch of salt is extremely good advice. Or, at the very least, they should always be treated objectively until the statements on them tie in elsewhere. This is simply because the registrar was under no obligation, on most of the points offered, to question or refute them. (My own parents' marriage cert is an example, with three spurious "facts" relating to my mother!)

Who was it who said (quite correctly) that the only line you can trace accurately is the female one, as we know a person's mother (hopefully) but don't always know a person's father - whatever the birth cert or baptism register claims! The Prince Imperial is a case in point.

Interesting developments in the DNA programme you've highlighted (about which I know nothing, being a scientific duffer) although I can understand the reservations raised by PB-Q.

Best of luck with your researches.

Peter
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TonyJones


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 188
Location: Essex
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Dear Peter,
great banter,this is how discussion forums should be,constructive and informative.I noticed in the Daily Mail that National Geographic were about to launch 'The Human Genome Project' which offered participants a '12 marker Y Chromosome test' to chart their haplogroup (tribe) type and to show the migratory patterns of all direct descendants of an individual.By coincidence,i had just obtained a leaflet from the FRC called 'Genetic Signatures' which highligted the advances made in genealogy due to new technologies.The test was so cheap that i couldn't resist to take part in the project.
There were other reasons why i did this,and this has been in conjunction with the Thomas James Jones 'Jones' descendants and also to set a challenge to any individual who has any 'unconfirmed claims' of lineage from 593 past,present or future.Due to the predominance of female births in this family,on all branches,the number male Joneses that now exist are down to a minimum and i felt it was important to create a future method for Jones descendants to prove their case 'without doubt',long into the future when we have all gone.
If you read my 'ancestral information from Tony Jones' link on 593's page you will see the areas that are in dispute via the family trees and stories.
Some of the birth marriage and death certificates associated with 593 have proved particulary difficult with 'all-sorts' written on them,plus the Thomas James Jones branch wasn't sure if we shared the same gr gr grandmother (only 2 male Joneses left on this branch).It is much harder to trace this through the 'X' female line as the markers are not the same.
The websites www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic and www.familytreedna.com are a mine of information about this new technology which is well worth a browse and provides an enjoyable read.
In all honesty,the areas of research that i have engaged in concerning AZW matters(The Film Zulu-ouch!,593 Private William Jones VC,genealogy),are very limited and this topic presents a steep learning curve for a 'new-boy',but i have had articles published in other areas so in time should be able to adapt to what is apparently,a very discerning area of expertise-a reflection of the passion that individuals have for this subject,a factor difficult to find in other subjects.It's great how people on this forum can relate facts that are absolutely spot-on-i really enjoy that sort of precision.All the best.

Tony.
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