Sometimes, when I’m researching WWI service people, it can be very frustrating. An initial and a surname, particularly something like J Smith, can be close to impossible to narrow down to the one I’m looking for. Today I had a fellow, Frank HM Long, who proved a bit awkward. At first.
The main problem was that there was already a Frank Long on the SGW database. It could have been him. Then, I found another Frank Long who served and died who, equally, could have been the chap I was after.
The starting points were the initials ‘HM’.
After scrabbling around in the dark, I came across his digitised Kingston on Thames cemetery record. This was where he was buried. As well as his grave details, this gave me two valuable pieces of information. The date of his burial and his two middle names. Herbert Maxwell.
Suddenly, bit by bit, I built up a portrait of Frank. His parents (Charles and Anne), his six siblings, his wife (Margaret Mary), his daughter (Elsie), who he served with (East Surrey Regiment), when and how he died (locomotor ataxia and cystitis).
Each time I found a bit of information, it led to more stuff about Frank. The picture was building up. Gradually.
Sometimes, when I’m researching soldiers, the information comes quick and easy, but when it’s a gradual process it’s somehow more satisfying. The drips and drops of Frank’s life. From a blank page to a life.
At one point, I was explaining my frustration to Mirinda. I had yet to find his mother’s and his wife’s maiden names. But then I found those as well.
Just before each point of information discovery, I was tempted to finish and enter what I had into the database but then, something else, another snippet. Until I had the above record of Frank Herbert Maxwell Long.
Here’s Frank’s finished page on the SGW website. It had taken quite a bit of trawling but, at the end of it all, I was pretty well satisfied.
