3025 pte alexander thomas

[vintageo9]

Hi
I am trying to find out some information on pte A Thomas ( my great uncle ),
he was killed during the first wold war dont know where or how?,
i have the 2 medals 1 brass 1 silver i believe are awarded to soldiers who are killed, but he is not on the roll off honor and i cant find him through cwgc either.
On the medal it says that he was in the worc r which i take to be the worcestersire regiment.
Hope that someone can help

[scully]

Hi,

This is a strange one.

Private Alexander Thomas (3025) medal card show that he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and his number then changed to 83091.

It could be that he was wounded or taken ill, returned to the UK and died later. Have you checked for deaths of Alexander Thomas in the UK between the dates 1914 to 1921. Do you know how old he was when he died?
I found two deaths in the UK death records, details below:
Alexander Thomas died 1915 age 47 (Marlybone registration district).
Alexander Thomas died 1919 age 58 (Buckingham registration district).

Regards,

Louis

[Mike Jones]

Morning Louis and Mr-Mrs-Miss J. Doe,
Louis, Alexander is buried in France having died of wounds in 191-. As all the regulars know, I dont respond when I dont know an enquirers name. Here is the challenge to all you budding researchers. Who will be the 1st to tell Mr-Mrs-Miss J. Doe where His-her relative is buried in France ? I cant last much longer, so we need new researchers coming through. If no one finds him, I will tell you how I did it (So as you will know for the future). I have thrown down the gauntlet, who will take up my challenge? Lars, I am impressed with your growing knowledge and enthusiasm. When we sort him out I have question for you about his medals, which I dont understand !
Regards Mike

[beardie]

83091 pte a thomas of the 29th btn machine gun corps is buried in boulogne eastern cemetery

his medals would have his primary unit on them as stated

[vintageo9]

Well a newbie to this site and unaware of what was and how it is done,,
I did overlook perhaps putting my name on my title... my appologies to all offended....
Thankyou for the information but still do not understand why he is not on the worcester roll of honour.-Again my appologies if this is a daft question also...

Alan Evans

aka vintageo9

[LarsA]

Mike, I'm all ears to your question about A Thomas' medals. Did not manage to find his MIC though...
ATB
/Lars

[Mike Jones]

Morning Lars,
His card is not on Ancestry. The National Archives have it but at £3.50 we won't go down that road. I am going up to the National Archives soon, I will check it out then.
Regards Mike

[Mike Jones]

Morning Steve,
I have awarded you a very rare "2008 Star" for services to research, well done. How did you do it? I can only think of two ways. I will tell you my way but please tell me your method. You also read my mind, why is a Machine Gun Corps man's medals impressed as a Worcester? We dont have his Medal Index Card to see the reference numbers though. I have been to a few meetings of our local Medals and Research society. I was assured the Victory and War medal would be impressed to the last Regiment served in. This was the question I was going to ask you Lars.
Regards Mike

[beardie]

hi mike,
medals in most part are impressed with the regiment they landed in at the start of there war! if a man lands in france with worcesters and is wounded with them, goes back to england to recover. when he recovered he sent to the south staffs in france and is killed with them . his medals will be impressed worcesters!

gallantry medals are impressed with the unit he was at the time!

so you can have a man who landed in france and flanders with glosters served there and gets sick/wounded, send back to blighty to recover. sent to the worcesters in france and wins military medal!

his mm would be worcesters and his trio would be impressed glosters!

i hope i am making sense

[Mike Jones]

Hi Steve,
third attempt at posting a reply, am getting very angry now. Lot of wasted typing. Thanks for your reply, it seems there were rules or guidlines for the award of medals. These do not seem to have been followed on all occasions.
Best Regards Mike

[Mike Jones]

Hi Steve,
small bits at a time. I have some awards that dont fit the bill. We could talk by e-mail privately but I think it best on the Forum. This way we could all benefit from each others input.
Best regards Mike

[Mike Jones]

Hi Steve,
I hope Lars and others will also come in on this. I shall start a new thread in the Medals section of the Forum. You did not say how you found Pte. A Thomas. Did you just forget or don't you want to reveal your method ? This is the last bit. Not much but it would not upload in one go !
Best Regards Mike

[LarsA]

I concur with Steve, In my collection are four WWI pairs to soldiers that were KIA with different battalions of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. All these groups are impressed to them as Lancashire Fusiliers, Monmouthshire Regiment or Welsh Regiment, their first regiment overseas. I'm not sure if this is also true when there was a change in rank between postings, all my examples are to soldiers with the rank of private before and after reposting.

ATB

/Lars

[beardie]

hi mike, started off by finding pte a thomas in soldier died the great war cd rom by inputing the service number louis gave. this gave me a date of death! so i inputed a thomas into cwgc who died in 1918 and found him

[Mike Jones]

Morning Steve,
The way you did it, is the way I did it until very recently. Then I found "Geoff's Search Engine" on the web. It is a stunning piece of kit and completely FREE. The man (Geoff Sullivan) is a philanthropic genius. The system is based on Commonwealth War Grave records. You can enter very little information into various pre-set boxes and it does the rest. For our Mr. A Thomas, I put Thomas in the surname box and his regimental number in the appropriate box and in seconds up he came. I use it a lot to find men and their addresses from my home town. I simply put "Chatham" in the "Additional information" box and lots of local addresses come up. I shall be putting this into *How to research a Great War soldier" thread. I shall also soon open our thread in the medals section.
Regards Mike