Today is a breakthrough

[MrsPoppy]

I have just been searching on A through the military records which are free this weekend and it has resulted in a massive breakthrough.

I knew my grandfather born in 1881 used both his birth (illegitimate) surname and the surname of the man his mother married. However he has always eluded me on census returns and generally until he got married in the late 1910's.

It is fair to say he was 'a bit of a lad' and he was always in trouble even up to the last years of his life when he died in the 1940's.

Today I have found another attestation paper that I have never seen before from the 1890's - he was discharged for desertion and for being a general nuisance and that much I knew - however this new attestation paper says he also used two names I had never heard before. He had attested under these names and was discharged when they found him out. I have now found the attestation papers for him under one of the alias's but the big breakthrough is I have found him on the 1901 census (albeit as a prisoner) under one of the other names.

I have been looking for him for decades in the 1901 census and I would never have found him under the name he was using.

I knew he had legged it off to America but got called up for WW1 and I think I may have found him going to America under one of the other names.

So it just goes to show that new records appear all the time and sometimes they contain the information that is needed to crack the case.

Mrs P

[Lesley Robertson]

Well done! It sounds as though it might be worth looking for him in the newspapers as well, or have you done that?

[MrsPoppy]

Hi Lesley

I have several newspaper articles of his various escapades and he is also mentioned twice in the police gazette, once for stealing a horse when he was drunk, (he let it go down the high street and ran off) and when he deserted. However I am going to look for the new names now.

Mrs P

[Lesley Robertson]

That's the joy of black sheep in the family! They leave such a lovely paper trail!

[MrsPoppy]

Well he has certainly left a paper trail - once I began to understand the variants of the names he uses I found all sorts. He was a troubled man I think. I never knew him but he struggled with life that is for sure.

Mrs P