Victor John Mead - Early Life

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Colin from Ickleford who had come across this blog (one of a select few!) whilst researching the names that appear on the Ickleford First World War memorial. He is looking to put together a commemoration to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.

I wrote a post about my Grand Uncle, Victor John Mead and way back then had promised to complete his story. Inspired by Colin's phone call, this is, I promise, the first of several posts which tell his story.

Victor John Mead, known as John, was born on 27th May 1897 in Ickleford. When I first saw the photo below, I had no idea who was in it until I asked my parents, who told me it included my Great Uncle and my Grandfather. I wonder how many others in the photo fought in the First World War?

The enlargement below shows my Great Uncle on the left, and my Grandfather Denys on the right. My Grandfather also fought in the First World War, but despite being injured twice he survived

The census entry below shows the family living in Ickleford in 1911.

We think the picture below shows the family home. The Cottage is next to the Cricketers pub.

My next post will cover Victor's enlistment and his service in the First World War.

Loose Ends

I find that births and marriages are usually relatively easy to find. Finding a death for someone can be more tricky in that you may not know where or when it occurred. This can mean ploughing through the death indexes looking for suitable candidates. The two I'm focusing on at the moment are Kate Fox (Great Grandmother) and John M Batchelor (1st Cousin 1x removed). I'm pretty sure I've identified the "right" death for the latter, but Kate is a different matter.

Kate always made herself out to be younger than she really was, so establishing her date at death is tricky. Also, the last trace I can find of her is in London in 1929. She may have stayed there until she died, or she could have moved. I've picked what looks like the most likely one from my shortlist and ordered a copy of the death certificate for her and John.

At £9.25 a go, I hope I've got the right ones! I'll post the outcome when I get the certificates.

My Family At War

Like most families in this country, a good number of my ancestors have served in the armed forces. Find My Past sent me an email the other day to advertise the fact that they had added more records from the WO97 series. After a couple of quick searches I turned up the records for Josiah Mead from (H)Ickleford, one of my distant uncles.

Downloading the images was the easy part. Some of the handwriting is very difficult to read (even worse than mine!) and he served in the early part of the C19th, not in the Napoleonic wars but in the East Indies and later in Ireland, an area of military history that I know nothing about.

Once I can work out what the records say, finding out where his regiment served in detail should be fascinating.

A very long day

I spent Sunday travelling to St Neots and back to collect three beds, but that's another story. Everything was going to plan until I got stuck in a 15 mile traffic jam on the M3. This meant I was two hours late arriving. The plan had been to spend an hour or so looking round Hitchin Cemetery on the way back, but in the end I got 15 minutes. I didn't find any graves from my direct line but I did come across the headstone of my 2nd Great Grand Uncle, Daniel Crawley. His wife, Martha, is buried in the same plot along with their Grand-Daughter, Mabel Constance who died aged 18. I wonder why she died at such a young age?
After eight hours on the road the chilled bottle of Ermie and Gertie's cider waiting for me at home was most welcome!

Is this my ancestral family home?

With the weather being so good, I've not spent much time researching recently, but an email from Mary stirred my interest. She had been contacted by someone from Cumbria who also has Angus connections. She contributes to a website which says that our family history can be traced all the way back to Tantallon Castle in Scotland in the C16th! I need to look at what the website in more detail, but if true, it's certainly an exciting prospect.

Google Street View

The other day Google updated Street View to include virtually the entire country. The picture at the top of this blog is of my grandfather stood outside The Old George in Ickleford. He hated having his picture taken and it's one of only two photos that I have of him. The picture above is the same pub today. My Aunt had said previously that she remembered there being a door where the bay window is now. She was very pleased when I sent her the photo and she was proved right!

Transcription Errors

Having found Joseph Angus' Police pension record the other day, I wanted to fill in some other gaps about his life. I had details of his marriage to Emma Earles and the censuses from 1851 to 1871, but no birth or death dates and no census entries from 1881 onwards. Joseph is shown as deceased on his son's marriage certificate from 1902. There is a Joseph Angus who dies in 1900 in London and is the right age, but to confirm it's him, I'll have to order the certificate - one for another day.

With a subscription to Ancestry and some credits on Find My Past, I reckoned I should be able to find him on the censuses. Searching 1881 on Ancestry he came up straight away. 1891 was a different matter. After some time putting in various searches, I came up empty handed. Switching to Find My Past a likely candidate came up first time. I downloaded the page and confirmed it. So why couldn't I find him on Ancestry? Now knowing the exact census reference, I found him under the name Joseph Agens with his birth place given as Seaberghan (should be Sebergham)

Looking at it I could see it said Angus, but I could also see why someone with no connection to the family could have read it differently. A timely reminder that, fantastic as it is to have all the censuses online, if they are poorly transcribed searching them can be very frustrating. I submitted the real names as changes to Ancestry and looked at the clock. Nearly midnight again, time for bed!