In the final part of my mini wedding series, I want to talk about my "something borrowed". After deciding on my something old, something new, and something blue, my borrowed became a little more difficult. I was thinking of borrowing a piece of jewellery, but the neckline of my dress was already fairly high, and I don't really know anyone who wears a lot of bracelets.

Photo by Maria Carrington Photography

In the end my in-laws helped me, without me even mentioning it to them. My mother-in-law carried a special piece of her new husband's family history down the aisle, and they decided to pass it on to me. This beautiful lace handkerchief was a gift to my father-in-law's mother. She married her husband in the 1940s, at the height of World War 2. As a sailor my father-in-law's father was shipped off to various parts of the world during the course of the war, and at one point he was sent to Belgium, leaving behind his now-pregnant wife.

When news came that his wife had given birth to a son, my father-in-law, the young husband decided to buy his wife a beautiful Belgian lace handkerchief from Bruges. I have no idea how he managed to keep it from getting mucky or damaged in the following weeks, but at some point he was allowed home to visit his wife and new baby son, and give her his beautiful present.

It became a treasured family heirloom, and when my mother-in-law married in to the family it was given to her to use as her "something borrowed". It's been carefully stored away ever since, taken on every house move in the following years, until our wedding led to my mother-in-law retrieving it from it's safe place. I was very touched when they asked me to carry it as my something borrowed, and had it tucked away safely in my dress when I walked down the aisle to my new husband. Although that happy couple from the 1940s weren't able to be there on our special day, a little piece of their family history was. One day I hope it'll be passed down to another bride coming in to the family.

James Henry Harris

You might remember that a few months ago I wrote a blog post about my great-great uncle, George Harris, who died in the First World War.

Well on this day in 1915, George's older brother James Henry Harris died, also while fighting in the First World War. James had only been in action for a few months, his unit was sent to France in June 1915. However all of this information was unknown to me and my Mum until recently.

Starting at the beginning, James was born around 1885 in Westminster, London. He was the fourth child and second son of William John Harris and Harriet Louisa Harris, who went on to have five more children in the following years. James was followed in 1887 by Kate Harris, my great-grandmother. My Nan always told my Mum that James was Kate's favourite brother, I think her eldest brother William was a bit too old to be close as there were 8 years between them, and George, Albert and Harry were no doubt as annoying as younger brothers can be.

The Harris Boys, not sure which one is which though, the gentleman on the right is their father.

James' life is fairly easy to track, to a certain extent. He can be found on every family census from 1891 onwards, on the 1911 one he's a greengrocer helping his father in the business (William John had his own grocers and fruiterer's shop). He also witnessed his older siblings marry, his older sister Alice Maud married Alfred Latham in 1908 and William married Wilhelmina Koch in 1909, James' signature appears as witness on both marriage certificates. In October 1914 he then shows up on the certificate of Kate when she married her first husband, James Ashby.

Some time after witnessing this ceremony James signed up to go out and fight. He was placed in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and "died in the war", as my Nan used to tell it. I don't know whether my great-grandmother found it too painful to talk about her beloved brother's death, or if my Nan forgot the details and so didn't pass them along to my Mum. But it's mostly been through the internet and some luck that details of his short service have been pieced together.

The first problem I had is that Harris is a very common surname, James is also a very common first name and many men weren't recorded by both first and middle name, so was I looking for a James Henry Harris, or just James Harris? My Nan had mentioned to my Mum that all the Harris boys were in the Duke of Cornwall's unit, but since I'd already found George in the Machine Gun Corps I knew that I couldn't rely on that info. While searching on Ancestry I came across the medal card above, since the information matched what I knew I saved it, along with two other possibilities (including one from a London Regiment which I felt was more likely).

I then managed to find a bit more information on the JH Harris in the above service register by searching Military Genealogy. I found that the JH Harris with the service number 11042 was born in Westminster and had been living in Holloway when he signed up, which made me 95% certain I had the right man. But 95% isn't 100%, and I was reluctant to say for certain that it was definitely him without absolute proof.

To be honest though, I assumed that proof would never come. His service record doesn't survive, 70% of service records from the First World War were destroyed by German bombs in the Second World War. I checked Ancestry every time free offers came up, just in case I had missed something, but there was nothing new for me to add.

Until recently, when Iron Mountain storage facility announced that it was digitising a collection of soldier's wills that it had been storing for years. It seemed a bit of a far-flung hope, there's only a few hundred thousand wills, and millions of men died, but I typed in his name, just in case...

He was there! I nearly cried when his name came up in the search results. I paid £6 and two days later a PDF arrived in my inbox. It's difficult to read as I've shrunk the image to fit this blog, but it simply says "In the event of my death I give the whole of my property and effects to my mother, Harriet Harris, 5 Hatchard Road, Upper Holloway, London". Not only does he name his mother, but 5 Hatchard Road is where his sister Kate listed as her address on her 1914 marriage certificate. Private 11042 is my great-great uncle.

This also means that I know for certain how he died. Eighteen months ago I paid a visit to The National Archives and went through the war diary of the 7th Battalion DCLI. I wasn't expecting much, James wasn't an officer, he was just an ordinary soldier, and it's normally only officers whose death is mentioned by name in war diaries. I was expecting to read the words "One Other Rank Killed". But at least I would get some context, whether they were being shelled or building up for a big push forward, I might at least know what was going on when he died. So imagine my shock he wasn't just named as being deceased, they even mentioned the circumstances.

Sept 12 - Pte J.H.Harris was killed by a sniper, whilst working in VC Avenue.

"Kindest Regards, form your loving brother, Jim"

Have a nice evening everyone.

George Harris

On this day in 1917 my great great uncle, George Harris, died of wounds out in Belgium.

George was born on 10th July 1890 at Lower Sloan Street in London. He was the sixth of nine surviving children (the 1911 census notes one deceased child but I currently don't have a name) and the third of five boys. His parents, William John Harris and Harriet Louisa Farley, moved around quite a lot over the years. William was a grocer, and over the years all five boys grew up learning the same trade.

So, to put our George into a bit of context, he had five older siblings. His eldest brother William John was born in 1879, a sister Amelia came along on Christmas Eve in 1880. She was followed by Alice Maud in 1883 and James Henry (more on him in September) in 1885. My great-grandmother Kate was born in October 1887. After George came Albert Edward in 1893, with Harry in 1896 and finally May in 1898. I can only imagine how loud their household must have been.

By the time the First World War broke out the Harris family had dispersed a bit, with William and Alice married and living with their respective spouses. Family legend says that all five brothers signed up to fight, but whether they all joined together to went one by one as their consciences dictated isn't known.

What I know about George mostly comes from his medal card, shown above (image from Ancestry). He was originally in the Border Regiment, and his "Theatre of War First Served In" is listed as "2B". This means he served in Gallipoli, the date of entry for his "first theatre" is shown as the 25th April 1915, also known as the day of the Cape Helles landings. This was a brutal place to be fighting in, not helped by the high temperatures which the British lads would have been unfamiliar with. For many people Gallipoli is thought of as being mostly fought by ANZAC troops, but there were plenty of British boys fighting there too.

After the failure at Gallipoli the troops were pulled back to Egypt, where George (which had managed to survive the Cape Helles bloodbath) was transferred from the Border Regiment to the Machine Gun Corps.

WO 95/2305 at The National Archives

A lovely bloke from a first world war forum sent me the above picture, showing a certain Harris, G being part of a list of troops transferred to the MGC on 1st February 1916. He was given a new service number on the left, which matches the second service number in the medal card further up.

His particular MGC group (87th Company) was eventually moved over to help fight in the trenches, and it was here that George lost his life. I looked up the war diary for the company for the day that he died, but as with many soldiers his death is simply marked with "3 ORs dead" (OR stands for "Other Ranks", basically anyone that wasn't an officer).

He was buried at Canada Farm Cemetery out in Belgium, which me and my family visited a few years ago. It is, basically, a gravesite in the middle of a bunch of fields. Canada Farm was a farm (as the name suggests) which was turned into a field hospital

Sadly he wasn't the first brother to die, his older brother James was killed in action before him. Luckily the other three lived through it all.

If you're thinking of researching soldiers from your family here's a lot of help and guides online nowadays, you'll be surprised at what you find!

Have a nice day everyone!

Catherine Wilkinson

Good news, Euro 2012 is over! Back to blog posts once a week. I swear blogging so regularly was exhausting, I have no idea how people manage to blog once a day every day, it really does get to you after a while. I also suspect that people were getting fed up with me constantly Tweeting the links. Hopefully you can all have a rest, I have come down off my football high before the proper season starts (in fact I'm quite bored without having football to watch every evening), and in 2 years time the World Cup will roll around and all of us will have forgotten how mental this experience was so I can do similar posts featuring World Cup countries instead XD

Back in June last year I wrote my "Oh dear I'm Irish" post detailing my recently discovered Irish ancestry. That whole side of the family posed more questions than I had originally answered, questions which I have spent a year filling in the details for, and it's got to the point where I now have a better idea of the family!

As I said in the first post, my Mum asked me to explore the family of Catherine "Kate" Smith nee Wilkinson, my maternal grandfather's mother (and my great-grandmother). With the help of the lovely people on the British Genealogy forum I managed to fill in the gaps from the 1901 and 1911 census.

Catherine was indeed adopted by the Anderson family. Adoption in those days was a far less formal process, from what most people say it sounds as if families simply went "Yes we can look after a child", one was given to them, and that was that. I wish I knew what had prompted the Anderson family to adopt my great-grandmother. They lived in the same village as Catherine's grandmother and aunt, Bridget and Jane, so it may have simply been a favour for a friend (a bloody big favour!) or sense of Christian charity. Either way, in 1901 she is living with the widowed Mary Anderson and her two sons, and in 1911 she's still living with Mary Anderson along with one of Mary's sons and a daughter (and a lodger).

What I find most intriguing is that Catherine's half siblings lived just up the road. In 1901 Grandmother Bridget was living with her daughter Jane and her granddaughters Ada (daughter of a deceased daughter also called Bridget), another Catherine (Jane's daughter), and Hilda and Mary Gertrude (my Catherine's half sisters). By 1911 Grandmother Bridget had passed away, so aunt Jane was looking after the household on her own. Ada and First Catherine aren't there, I assume they were either married or followed the family tradition and left to work in service at a house in one of the nearby towns. But they have been replaced by John and Robert Wanless Wilkinson, my Catherine's half brothers, and Hilda and Mary Gertrude are still there!

When I read that I had to wonder if Catherine knew she was growing up with her family nearby. She knew she was adopted by the Anderson family as she alternates her maiden name between "Wilkinson" and "Anderson" on her marriage certificate and my Grandfather's birth certificate. But was she raised to believe that the other Wilkinsons down the road were her cousins, or her siblings?

As for Catherine's mother Mary Wilkinson (Mary Harraughty), unfortunately I'm still not sure what happened to her. There's several Mary Wilkinsons in Northumberland and Durham on the 1901 and 1911 censuses and I just can't work out which one is my great great Grandmother. I also can't tell which of several death certificates in later years is hers since the indexes give the barest amount of information.

I apologise for the lack of pictures in this post, I assumed you're all fed up with being bombarded with Etsy shops, so I'm taking a break from it for today! :)

Have a great week everyone!