Exploring Family Background with Timelines

Lloyd C.V. WWI aircraft 1917*

Last week I was distracted from my blog research and ended up looking into my grandfather's WWI service. His records showed him as a seaman in the Royal Navy. I wanted to know more so, I came up with a two-pronged research quest:

• to find out more about my grandfather's seaman's record

• to find out the background behind grandad's remark to my dad about Harry's nose being out of joint by dad joining "his" branch of the military  

Harry, my dad's oldest brother, was in the RAF in WWI and grandad said to my father that Harry would give dad a hard time for joining "his" branch of the service. My dad joined the RAF anyway, what are brother for if not to put each other's noses out of joint? The remark shed some light on the people involved, my grandad and uncle. I wanted to see if I could find out more about those two by looking at the records.

I decided to do a timeline of the records I found from both my grandfather, Charles Cavanagh's life as well as that of my uncle, Harry (Henry Robert Booth). The latest webinar on Can Gen Twist put on by Kathryn Lake Hogan, had been about timelines and I was itching to try one which showed the changing ages of the parties involved, like the one on the webinar.

It took ages to do the timeline because I was doing research and filling it in at the same time, probably not ideal but sometimes it helps to have a deadline to get things done. The pivotal entry that brought the two together was the 1915 marriage of Charles Edwin Cavanagh to Ellen Myra Booth. Her occupation was left blank, a terrible oversight if I ever saw one, as she ran a pub and had four living children. Henry Robert Booth was the eldest. He was 16 when his mother got married for a second time. Charles was a bachelor. I wonder if he knew what he was getting into?

 

One of the pages from the timeline 

The First World War began in 1914 and England was in the thick of it. Many young men of Harry's age were itching to get in on the fight; some lied about their ages to join up. But it was Harry's stepfather, Charles Cavanagh, who signed up first, joining the Royal Navy on June 8, 1917. He was sent to Chingford, where the navy aerodrome was, the next day and to the Eastern Mediterranean on September 15. The Royal Air Force was founded in 1918 and Charles was transferred to the RAF on April 1, 1918. Henry Robert Booth was 19 when he joined the RAF on July 24,1918. So, his stepfather was actually in the RAF already when he joined. Did Harry follow him into this branch of the service or was he unaware that his stepfather had been transferred?

Although Harry's enlistment record shows the pub on Dock Street as his permanent address, there were indications that the family wasn't actually living there at the time. These could been seen on Charles' transfer papers which list the younger children on the side, who were Harry's younger brother and sister and his half brothers, Charles and Cyril. While Charles and Ellen Myra's first son was listed as being born in Whitechapel, according to the notation their second son, Cyril, was born in Sunbury. 

The 1919 electoral poll shows Charles and Ellen Myra back on Dock Street. Looks like things were back to normal after the cessation of hostilities. Harry was probably living there as well because that was the address given on his 1921 marriage certificate. His stepfather Charles was one of the witnesses to his marriage, which argues that the relationship was close. Harry's bride, Christina, lived just a short distance away on Upper East Smithfield Street which was probably how the young couple met. In fact, Harry and Christina lived at that address until 1939, another indication of a close relationship with family. 

Extract of 1899 Booth Poverty map showing Upper East Smithfield and Dock Streets

 

Now, 1939 was when my father was talking about joining the RAF. That was when my grandad made the remark about Harry's nose being out of joint by dad joining "his" branch of the service. I can't be sure about the true context of the remarks but drawing up the timeline of events and filling in some of the gaps gave me a clearer picture of the people involved, the closeness of the family bonds and a better understanding of the history in which my relatives were involved. 

 

If you are looking for a way to organize your family research and get a better understanding of a forebear's live, timelines are a good tool. They are also a great way to organize the information you have gathered into a usable form. It took me a while to draw up the timeline but it focused my research. I wonder which line I should make a timeline for next?

 

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/list/timeline-of-world-war-i  

 

Images:

 

*By Unknown - Original publication: 1915Immediate source: http://riseofflight.com/forum/topic/27999-gift-registry-list-enter-your-na#e/page-46, Public Domain, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42385135 

  

 

Distracted Researching Results in a New Look at a WWI Record

The book that sent me off on a tangent

My intentions were good. I planned to read the souvenir guidebook Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for this week's blog post. But, as so often happens when doing research, I got distracted when I got to the write up about the WWI ship that is currently on display in Portsmouth Harbour. Was that the ship that my grandfather was on during WW1, or at at least similar to it?

I knew that my grandfather had been in the Royal Navy in WWI because I had found his military record in the Royal Navy Registers of Seaman's Services on the National Archives Discovery website. At one point my father had told me that his father had been on Lemnos and Mykonos, or maybe he said Mudros, during his time in the Mediterranean in WWI. I imagined my grandfather cruising around the Greek Islands on a battleship or maybe something a bit smaller. Well, maybe cruising isn't quite the word since they had to look out for the enemy - there was a war on.

Picturing my grandad as a young man in a naval uniform I was brought up short by the words "ENGT TO RAF" stamped at the bottom of his naval record. A bit odd that especially as another thing my grandad had said to my dad was that dad's elder brother Harry would give him a hard time for enlisting in the RAF for WWII as that was "Harry's" branch of the service. I thought that grandad would have stayed clear of the RAF if that was the case.

So, my initial thoughts had resulted in a two-pronged quest:

• to find out more about my grandad's seaman's record
• to find out the background behind grandad's remark to my dad about Harry's nose being put out of joint by my dad joining "his" branch of the military 

The information gleaned from the seaman's record follows below. How I found out more about grandad's remark will be covered next week.

Partial transcription of my grandad's seaman's service record:

Research into the record

President II, I took to be his first ship when I first looked at the record but, according to information from the Great War Forum https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/30418-hms-president-ii/, the President II was the Royal Navy's accounting base. A location related to a sailor's pay not a ship that he would be assigned to. The second bracketed word under President II was Chingford. A Google search for that name brought up Chingford Aerodome which was used by the Royal Navy for their flying arm before the Royal Air Force (RAF) was founded in 1918. Another search into the rank of ac1 found in the rating column came up with a Wikipedia article on aircraftmen  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraftman which told me that AC1 was used for an aircraftman first class.

While I had been picturing my grandad as a sailor, he was actually an airman, at least during the time that the navy had their own air arm. I found an RAF record for him on FindMyPast which added more information about his WWI service. What I uncovered, leaves me with further questions to research. I have seen information about the flyers over France during WWI but what kind of flying was done in the Eastern Mediterranean, which was where my grandfather was sent, according to his record.

I wonder what I will find when I look into that question? But I mustn't get distracted from my research for next week's post about the background to grandad's remark about "Harry's" branch of the service.

Salmson 2 WWI recon aircraft*

Images:


*By Unknown - Original publication: 1918Immediate source: http://riseofflight.com/forum/topic/27999-gift-registry-list-enter-your-na#e/page-46, Public Domain, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42385321 

Family History's Past

I have always been interested in history but my obsession with genealogy and searching my family's history came later. Along the way I have often wondered why genealogy was viewed as history's poor relative, you know, the one that sits at the table but rarely raises their voice, lest they be ousted from the table and forever loose their place.

So, I had to find out why. Just why were history and genealogy, two studies that appeared to go hand in glove, viewed so differently especially in the academic world? According to Francois Weil, in his book about the history of genealogy in America, in the late 19th century, the paths of history and genealogy separated with history taking the high road to academia and professional standards while genealogy took the low road to commercialization.

Professional researchers would undertake the task of doing the research for a client. If, in the interests of making the client happy, they appropriated a more interesting family line with the same surname, there was no one to call them on it and they would end up with a happy client. Happy clients were more likely to spread word their wonderful researcher who got such great results. And so, it went. As time went on the aims of genealogy became clearer. The aim, at least in America and Britain, was to find the client an Anglo-Saxon lineage with ties to the British peerage. The peerage books published during the time had good information but some suspect information could creep in to prove a client family link.

During this same time period, there were also excellent researchers who did good work, but they were not in the majority. Genealogy was still tainted with wishful genealogies for the early decades of the 20th century. During this time there were some researchers who sought the truth and their numbers started to increase as attitudes changed as people weathered the years of wars, Nazism and civil rights.

Genealogy became respectable as standards were set and institutions such as the LDS church and the Society of Genealogists opened their doors to the general research public. In England, genealogists lobbied the government for better access to records, and it grudgingly complied. The serious-minded family historian was gaining ground. Not that commercialism ever left the field. Nowadays it is found in the large genealogy databases such as Ancestry, FindMyPast and My Heritage. Not only that, but genealogy tourism is big business. But, along side those ventures, there is also the ability to study genealogy in university on both sides of the Atlantic proving that family history is also worthy of academic study. And now a days too, some books about history actually do include genealogical information and no one bats an eye.

Sources:

Sharpe, Michael. Family Matters: A History of Genealogy. Pen and Sword Books, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, 2011.

Weil, François. Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013.