Finding WW1 Soldiers in Your Family Tree

When I started out, I didn't think there were any WW1 soldiers in my family tree. Certainly there were no stories or tales of anybody having fought in WW1 as I was growing up.

One of my grandfathers died 8 years before I was born and his wife, my grandma, was living offshore, so I probably only met her 1-2x, with the last time being when I was about 5 years old. I had a local pair of grandparents, born in 1905 and 1908 though, so both too young to have been in WW1. I did hear a whisper that my (step) granddad had been in WW2 and was injured in some way, although I've no idea how. He died when I was 10.

So that was my lot! It's been a complete revelation to me, therefore, to have discovered some WW1 soldiers in the family tree.

The closest relative was my grandfather's brother, he died of illness. Many soldiers died of illnesses during the War, they weren't all shot in the trenches at all. There were many other reasons, illness was one and dying from wounds was another. Some died of wounds within days/weeks, and some died a few years later of those wounds.

I'll be creating a page with a list of all the soldiers in the tree I do find though, as I go along. Each will have their own post here, with a link back to the list of them all.

It's all quite sad as you think about the fact they never went home. Most didn't "choose" to fight, it was what you had to do. You were either shamed into it, bullied by locals, or conscripted in. Just sent off to die, with their poor mothers simply receiving a letter. It's all very sad really.

I've found about five WW1 soldiers to date. While some have been commemorated on their local war memorial, I've found one who seems to have been overlooked. I've yet to work out why, exactly. I think it's because the family moved around a little bit, so they weren't part of the furniture, so to speak. One who was probably aged 8-16, then moved 200 miles away (back to his home county, but not his originating village) and was then killed in the war - so I doubt the locals knew him - and the lads he'd grown up with never knew he'd died.

Most don't have a grave at all, they're simply commemorated on a wall abroad. So tragic for their families that they didn't even have the knowledge that their son/brother/husband's body had been given any dignity with a proper burial.