And I've just found a poem to Heber Thomas' memory (yn y Gymraeg, wrth gwrs!) This is a very rich resource and I encourage others to trawl, too. Won't get much else done this weekend! David On 30 Nov 2013, at 11:12 am, Megan Roberts <meganroberts.bc@googlemail.com> wrote: > David > > I too am amazed at the detail to be found. > > My gt uncle John Henry Gambold was killed at the Dardanelles, and the newspapers even published a copy of the letter received by his mother from his commander, and then at the end of the war a very poignant "in memorial" placed by the family which I feel sure that every family who lost someone would have felt the same. The poem was: > > He bid no one a last farewell, he said goodbye to none, > His spirit flew before we knew that from us he had gone, > We often think of you, dear John, and of how you died, > To think we could not say goodbye before you closed your eyes. > > It may well be something that was penned by someone else and adapted by the family, or maybe they wrote it themselves. > > Megan > > > > > On 30 November 2013 00:04, David Rowlands <drowlan1@bigpond.net.au> wrote: > Diolch, Megan > > I had not seen that before and it has found newspaper items I had not seen before at the LLGC site. > > I was looking for any record of the only relative I know of who fell in Europe in the Great War, one Heber Thomas, lost in October 1917 (Passchendaele), 2nd Lt in the Buffs. He was my Taid's second cousin. I found a remarkable number of items about him and his family. > > His father was Rev David Thomas, who is buried in his home parish of Llangynfelyn but was a peripatetic Methodist minister who had also been in Dolgellau and Denbigh. What was really remarkable was that one newspaper article recording Heber's death even had a photo (awfully poor reproduction and quite useless but the surprise was to see it at all!). Sadly the old boy was in hospital in London when the boy died. The father then lasted only a couple of years. > > This source has yielded new information, though, including that Heber had two sisters and identified who one was married to, so it provided some interesting new leads. > > David > Canberra > > > On 29 Nov 2013, at 6:26 pm, Megan Roberts <meganroberts.bc@googlemail.com> wrote: > > > I came across this site and found it most interesting and helpful: > > > > Cymru 1914 - The Welsh Experience of the First World War > > > > cymru1914.org/en/home > > > > regards > > Megan Roberts > > > > > > > -- > Megan Roberts > Mobile: +44 7702 093 714 > Home: +44 1257 231955