Finding old, dead people.

[MadduckUK]

dont talk tosh, everyone knows they open on there own

[Zadock]

yes and also for prying open the coffin lid...

A lot the coffins are riveted or have bolts at the corners, start with a spanner if you want the lid off in one piece.

[Mousemat]

A lot the coffins are riveted or have bolts at the corners, start with a spanner if you want the lid off in one piece.

Someone's obviously done this before....

[Jay]

A lot the coffins are riveted or have bolts at the corners, start with a spanner if you want the lid off in one piece.

What a fool I would have looked turning up without a spanner!

[iranu]

I think that's as far back as legible records go (doomsday book?) as we've got back to about 1537 or so.... although we have traced one line of ours back to King Duncan of Macbeth fame

Yes, you then have to do some real legwork by visiting individual Parishes that hopefully have records. Our only relative of note is my great grandfather who fought all 8 campaigns in the Boer War and then volunteered at the age of 35 to fight in WW1. He won the DCM at Neuve Chappelle in 1915 (and the anecdote from the bloke we traced in Oz was that he was put up for the VC, but his commanding officer was killed before he could give the citation, however, I think that's a bit of historical embellishment, but he was certainly a local hero).

He was lucky, in June of that year, whilst on a night time working party, he was severely wounded in the stomach by a shrapnel from a shell and one of his mates shouted Bill's not taking another one and promptly dived on top of him. This bloke was killed, the shrapnel taking most of his behind off, along with 2 others. He was carried back down the lines by a Gurkha named Tupta, spent a month in France before returning home.

I've got the trench maps of the area and can pin point to about 100 yards square the area where his action that won him his medal(s) took place. We also know roughly where he was when wounded.

He used to push my uncle John around on his tricycle and always called him Johnny Tupta (Gurkhas are nick named Johnnies). He went on to be the escort/bodyguard for royalty during one of the Great Exhibitions in the 1920's. The rest of us are all plebs and uninteresting!

[iranu]

I had a chat with the old man tonight and he first started off with the census data which is available online from 1901 and before - see sammyc's post. He also went to http://www.ancestry.co.uk/, it has a free search facility for these censuses and also has a free trial period (and iirc you can also pay for each search rather than a monthly fee) which you can take advantage of.

DoB and PoB are very handy for searching - have you any more info?

[WhiteGiant]

I thought I would have by now, the search area has changed to somewhere in London apparently!?

Many thanks for your interest iranu, I'll give you thanks and an 'oovarvou' in return.