Lincolnshire regiment & Spanish Civil War!!

[freddie999]

My search through my family history, has been made difficult with few old relative to give me information. on our family. However, I have had to make do with scraps of dubious detail dripped to me gradually. I have now been told that my Lincoln based grandfather served in the Lincolnshire regiment, and also fought in the Spanish Civil war!! Apparently during WW1 he was shot in the stomach and gassed (no army/pension papers can be found on Ancestry). I am aware men who signed up don't usually end up in their home regiment, the information I have been given suggest that he did. I have a photo of him in his uniform, which has been placed on this site and no identification came from that, the cap badge was unclear. The Spanish Civil war occured during 1936-39, my grandfather died in 1939, with stomach cancer.

Any ideas? Was there volunteers from Lincoln fighting in The Spanish Civil war?

[Peter Goodey]

There were several thousand British volunteers in Spain. See
http://www.
international-brigades.org.uk/british_volunteers/

For obvious reasons it may be difficult to track down information about any civil war connections of your ancestor.

To avoid confusion, the Lincoln Brigade was composed of US volunteers.

There are many internet references to the International Brigades but bear in mind that volunteers didn't only enlist in the International Brigades. The (British) Independent Labour Party had friendly relations with the Spanish political party POUM and many volunteers joined one of their militias. George Orwell was one such example.

If he died in 1939, it all sounds a bit unlikely to me.

[Coromandel]

From Documents Online you can download 'scanned images of pages copied from records kept by the Security Service (KV). They include a complete list of names and dates of British International Brigade volunteers arranged alphabetically (KV5/112)':

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/d...-civil-war.asp

These cost £3.50 per section (each section covers surnames beginning with the same letter of the alphabet). You get much better value for money for names beginning with B (22 pages) than for those beginning with U (2 pages). There's also a downloadable 'roll of honour (incomplete*) of those killed in action while fighting in Spain.'

The National Archives apparently also has index cards in KV 5/118 relating to the individuals named in these indexes. These are mostly not online, apart from a few for well-known people like Eric Blair a.k.a. George Orwell. These ones can be downloaded free.