Hi Mary Yes I have some of the deaths for servicemen, the same applies to English certs, usually just killed in action or died of wounds, location France or whatever As you may have seen I have mailed Ancestry to see what the problem is with the Aldershot or whatever as theatre of War, its obviously picking up the wrong field from the database, I doubt we are the only ones to notice, I had not questioned it as I already had the data from another source The database on Ancestry titled "British Commonwealth War Graves Registers, 1914-1918" covers far less than the CWGC Frankly I don't use that database for that reason, I have several that should be in Ancestry's list but are not and do appear on the CWGC There are other good reasons for using Ancestry's Military records though, they have the medal cards and service records (your aforementioned burned records) for WW1 (service records to surname letter N to date) plus much more besides I do not find findmypast of much use really but it all depends what you are looking for, I don't see any data on findmypast for the Boer War or Crimea? Their search engine leaves much to be desired but as they are owned by the same people who own scotlandspeople it does not surprise me very much Your mention of war deaths not being included by the CWGC as they were after August does not make much sense to me as the CWGC covers war deaths 1914 to 1921 My own grandfather is commemorated on the CWGC and he died in November 1918 Thanks for yours, its good to discuss the ins and outs of the various databases available, what a way we have come forward in a few short years, remember when the 1881 came out? we thought it such a revolutionary thing and look at us now Best wishes Nivard Ovington, in Cornwall (UK) > Nivard, > > Soldiers who die in service are on Scotlandspeople, under the "parish" > military return. You'll be disappointed by the actual records. > Ancestry.com has > excellent indexes but all of mine say Aldershot! They show 3 died, but > I've > found 32! Just up to WWI. The commonwealth grave website is much better > than > Ancestry's version of the same list. I've found the medal cards give a > better > indication of who fought, (54) and then each man needs to be hunted down, > by the > personnel number, at the PRO in Kew, England (Public records office or > Great > Britain archive). > > Find my past had additional men at Waterloo, Crimea, and Boer Wars. I had > them all looked up in the "burned records". "Aldershot" is some "catch > all" but > it certainly doesn't tell you where they served or where they fell. > Perhaps > that is where they were assigned Regiment and battalion?

No - you are not the only people to notice that Aldershot is recorded as a theatre of war. There's a discussion of this on the exceedingly useful Great War Forum http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php which didn't get very far. Ancestry said the fault must lie in the original records but someone easily found examples of the same "Soldiers Died" data on FindMyPast and it had "France and Flanders" down as the theatre there, showing it was not the original data that was wrong. Equally clearly, the numbers of Aldershots are huge making zero possibility of a human-brain-to-keyboard transcription error. If the data really is the same as "Soldiers Died" data on FindMyPast then my guess is that there must have been an IT systems error that resulted in the rejection of the actual transcribed data and substitution of a default - e.g. "France & Flanders" is not a valid place. On the other hand, I wonder if there has been some sort of a merge with the death certificate data for these men - if the death certificates were submitted from Aldershot that might explain it. Either way, it's a huge task to correct it. (Apologies to anyone finding this discussion boring - as an IT support person, explanations of why errors happened were just as important as correcting them. And possibly more interesting!) Speaking of errors - now that the Howff burial data is on ScotlandsPeople, it appears to be indexed correctly there, unlike the previous index that showed no Bruces in Dundee before 1855. I think not! That was an error that sadly rendered a lot of work ungettatable. Adrian B -----Original Message----- From: angus-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:angus-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Nivard Ovington Sent: Tue 07 April 2009 14:20 To: angus@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [ANGUS] Try again? Hi Mary Yes I have some of the deaths for servicemen, the same applies to English certs, usually just killed in action or died of wounds, location France or whatever As you may have seen I have mailed Ancestry to see what the problem is with the Aldershot or whatever as theatre of War, its obviously picking up the wrong field from the database, I doubt we are the only ones to notice, I had not questioned it as I already had the data from another source The database on Ancestry titled "British Commonwealth War Graves Registers, 1914-1918" covers far less than the CWGC <<snipped>>

Hi Adrian I would have been hugely surprised if I were the only one to question it but as I said previously I already had the information from another source so did not have the need to follow it up The following is the entry for one of mine from findmypast (I feel sure I checked it against another source and found that the same) Name: OVINGTON, Lawrence Memorial Scroll Regiment, Corps etc.: "Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own (Yorkshire Regiment)" Battalion etc.: 4th Battalion. Last name: Ovington First name(s): Lawrence Initials: L Birthplace: Redcar Enlisted: Northallerton Residence: Middlesbrough Rank: SERGT. Number: 5714 Date died: 16 November 1916 How died: Killed in action Theatre of war: France & Flanders This is Ancestry's version Name: Lawrence Ovington Birth Place: Redcar Residence: Northallerton Death Date: 16 Nov 1916 Enlistment Location: Middlesbrough Rank: Sergeant Regiment: Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own (Yorkshire Regiment) Battalion: 4th Battalion. Number: 5714 Type of Casualty: Killed in action Theater of War: Aldershot As you can see they not only have the Theatre of War wrong they have swapped the place of residence and enlistment Your suggestion is one possibility but still think my own suspicion that its picking up the wrong database field is more likely and if so should be relatively easily corrected Best wishes Nivard Ovington, in Cornwall (UK) > No - you are not the only people to notice that Aldershot is recorded as a > theatre of war. There's a discussion of this on the exceedingly useful > Great > War Forum http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php which didn't > get very far. Ancestry said the fault must lie in the original records but > someone easily found examples of the same "Soldiers Died" data on > FindMyPast > and it had "France and Flanders" down as the theatre there, showing it was > not the original data that was wrong. > > Equally clearly, the numbers of Aldershots are huge making zero > possibility > of a human-brain-to-keyboard transcription error.