52 Ancestors - Week 12 - Misfortune - Pte. James William Massey
My mother-in-law, Elsie, passed away quite suddenly on 13 August 2000. She was 86 years old. When the funeral director came to complete her death certificate, I scoured the house for Elsie's birth and marriage certificates which she used for a new passport before emigrating to New Zealand. They were nowhere to be found, which was no surprise; Elsie was very good at throwing out things. Her date and place of birth and the details of her husband and her mother were easy. I knew nothing of her father at all, other than the vague, "Oh, he was killed in the Great War." Phone calls to her half-sisters in England were just as unproductive, though they did confirm the story of her father's death.
Five years earlier, I had attempted to find out the name of Elsie's father while deciding upon the name for our son. We wanted him to have family names. Elsie had been adamant that her father had been killed in the First World War, but no, she couldn't remember his name. On other family aspects, she was very lucid. She could tell me all about growing up with her maternal grandparents during the war and about her mother's second marriage and her half-sisters and brother's births. But her father's name alluded her. Frankly, I was quietly sceptical - who would forget their father's name?
There were two issues: firstly, Elsie's date of birth on 11 November 1913 which was before war was declared and secondly, the fact that her mother and father had been married. I assumed too that Elsie's maiden name was her mother's married name. The internet was in its infancy in the late 1990s when I was looking for answers. I remember looking at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site and finding the names of likely young men and asking her if the names sounded familiar. Of course they didn't. What Elsie chose not to tell me, was that she was illegitimate.
Over the years, I searched the internet and found the first husband of Elsie's mother, Mary. She had married in January 1916, two years after Elsie was born. Now I had the name of a possible father - James William Massey - but could I prove that he was Elsie's father? It wasn't until Armstice Day 1916 and (Elsie's birthday), that I found my evidence when Findmypast was offering free searches of military records. There was James William Massey, a private in the Sherwood Foresters.
His military personnel file filled out some of the details of a young man I had followed through the census and other internet records. He too had been born illegitimately, to Eliza Massey, though she married Charles Milner later the same year. Until James enlisted, he used the surname 'Milner' which added to the confusion. James grew up in a Derbyshire colliery town and by 1911 was a pony driver in a coal pit. At enlistment in the Territorials aged 19 early in 1913, he was a coal miner. In amongst the file was the information that James had acknowledged Elsie and had been paying fourpence a day for her upkeep before he married Mary. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, six months after his marriage, James was killed in action. His personal effects including a tin lobster were returned to Mary and Elsie. I wonder if it were a toy lobster that Elsie had given her father or was it a gift for his child?
The saddest thing of all is the inscription carved on James's headstone at the Fonquevillers Military Cemetery: Never forgotten by his loving wife and child.
You may be wondering how Elsie and James fit into the category of "Misfortune". The misfortune is that the internet was not established well enough in 2000 so I could find and share James's story with his daughter, Elsie. What might she then have remembered about her other grandparents and her aunts and uncles whom she must have known growing up?
A postscript: James's only great-grandson does not carry his name, though at primary school his nickname was 'Jim'. If he had been a girl, his name would have been Alice Mary. Alice is not a family name, but co-incidentally was the name of one of James's sisters though I didn't know it at the time.
Five years earlier, I had attempted to find out the name of Elsie's father while deciding upon the name for our son. We wanted him to have family names. Elsie had been adamant that her father had been killed in the First World War, but no, she couldn't remember his name. On other family aspects, she was very lucid. She could tell me all about growing up with her maternal grandparents during the war and about her mother's second marriage and her half-sisters and brother's births. But her father's name alluded her. Frankly, I was quietly sceptical - who would forget their father's name?
There were two issues: firstly, Elsie's date of birth on 11 November 1913 which was before war was declared and secondly, the fact that her mother and father had been married. I assumed too that Elsie's maiden name was her mother's married name. The internet was in its infancy in the late 1990s when I was looking for answers. I remember looking at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site and finding the names of likely young men and asking her if the names sounded familiar. Of course they didn't. What Elsie chose not to tell me, was that she was illegitimate.
Over the years, I searched the internet and found the first husband of Elsie's mother, Mary. She had married in January 1916, two years after Elsie was born. Now I had the name of a possible father - James William Massey - but could I prove that he was Elsie's father? It wasn't until Armstice Day 1916 and (Elsie's birthday), that I found my evidence when Findmypast was offering free searches of military records. There was James William Massey, a private in the Sherwood Foresters.
His military personnel file filled out some of the details of a young man I had followed through the census and other internet records. He too had been born illegitimately, to Eliza Massey, though she married Charles Milner later the same year. Until James enlisted, he used the surname 'Milner' which added to the confusion. James grew up in a Derbyshire colliery town and by 1911 was a pony driver in a coal pit. At enlistment in the Territorials aged 19 early in 1913, he was a coal miner. In amongst the file was the information that James had acknowledged Elsie and had been paying fourpence a day for her upkeep before he married Mary. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, six months after his marriage, James was killed in action. His personal effects including a tin lobster were returned to Mary and Elsie. I wonder if it were a toy lobster that Elsie had given her father or was it a gift for his child?
The saddest thing of all is the inscription carved on James's headstone at the Fonquevillers Military Cemetery: Never forgotten by his loving wife and child.
You may be wondering how Elsie and James fit into the category of "Misfortune". The misfortune is that the internet was not established well enough in 2000 so I could find and share James's story with his daughter, Elsie. What might she then have remembered about her other grandparents and her aunts and uncles whom she must have known growing up?
A postscript: James's only great-grandson does not carry his name, though at primary school his nickname was 'Jim'. If he had been a girl, his name would have been Alice Mary. Alice is not a family name, but co-incidentally was the name of one of James's sisters though I didn't know it at the time.
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