Well done, Peter. It was great reading how you "cracked the case". I'm waiting for my own "moment" in my family research. Paul. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Gower" <peter.gower@sympatico.ca> To: <greatwar@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 11:48 AM Subject: [GREATWAR] Charles Huntback > Many thanks for the help on and off line. I believe I have solved a mystery. I will tell the story in some detail to encourage others who come to seemingly dead ends. > > I am researching the Great War dead of Kingston, Ontario, and its surrounding county. Ernest Huntbach appears on the County memorial, and he is 51513 Private Ernest Huntbach, PPCLI, who died of wounds on 26 May 1915. (He claims no military experience on his Attestation Papers, so how he got into the Princes Pats, I don't yet know). His death was not reported in the papers, though this was not unusual. > > On August 14th 1916, the death of Charles H Huntbach was announced. The report claimed he was 26 years old, had enlisted with a Western Canadian battalion, was a native of England but had been living in Canada for some years, and had married an English girl six weeks before his death. There were two other brothers, George and William. > > A search of the Ottawa archives, and of the full listing of men in the 1st Canadian Contingent, produced nothing. I suspected that there had been a name change, Huntbach being too Germanic, but that got me nowhere. > > I should have known that the newspaper was wrong. The PPCLI is not a Western battalion, so maybe Charles was not in a western battalion either, nor in a Canadian one? So, search CWGC without nationality, and there he is. All the facts fit. The 1890 birth in Market Drayton makes him 26 at death, and I can now read that brother Ernest was born in Cheswardine, south east of Market Drayton (in 1893). > > I also find Ernest Huntback's name on the War Memorial at Hanley Castle (south of Worcester). I wonder what that connection is? I have downloaded the photo from Flikr. > That was quite a day's work. Good luck to all others who think they are at a dead end! > > Peter > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GREATWAR-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message