Lest we forget

100 years since the break out of WW1. To acknowledge this horrific, yet defining moment in our history I'm going to find out more about my ancestors who fought in the war.

As far as I know my only direct ancestor who fought in the war was on my mom's side - my great great grandfather, Luke Mizon, who I believe was based here, actually in London. Whether he ever went abroad I'm not sure, it may have been because of his age he was posted here rather than abroad.

One query I have is why my great grandfather on my dad's side, Henry Edward Smith, wasn't called up, he would have been within the age bracket to be called up, but why he wasn't I'm not sure. His job was in the family business of Sausage Skin Makers (a German company...) can't quite see it was a reserved occupation!

I do know that my granddad's eldest brother fought, in fact my granddad, John Lovelock, was born in 1915 whilst his brother was in the army...a big age difference!

Other family members include ancestors on my Nan's side - The Johnsons.

I plan to spend a little time looking into their stories and piecing together their time in war, the difficulties they faced and overcame. I am not aware of anyone who died in battle, they all survived, luckily - but were they 'ok' after it all?

 

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Germans

So, I am in the readers story of the Oct edition of 'Who do you think you are?' BBC magazine.

I had seen in a previous months magazine an article about German ancestors and I just sent an email to comment on it and then was asked for more detail on my ancestors. At first there wasn't any 'big break through' they thought they could use in an article so it went a bit quiet, but they got in touch again and offered me a 'readers story' spot.

I was interviews for about an hour on the phone...it suddenly made me realise how complex my ancestry is when explaining it to someone who knew nothing about them! There were lots of 'bits' of info which I guess wasn't relative to the story they wanted to print, you just cannot cover everything! Once all that was done and drafts approved I had my photos taken - in the graveyard!

It was a nice summery day...until the rain came as we tried to find my great grandparents grave (I had only been once before a few years ago). Thankfully we found them and the rain stopped. After just under an hour of photographs we were done.

I received another draft and I requested a few changes then the article was done!

Now all I hope is perhaps someone knows something and gets in touch to solve the mysteries of disappearance, suicide and swindling!!! (The magazine makes the story sound much more dramatic than it properly was, but you never know...)