What’s in a military service record…

…besides military service information?

Sometimes you find surprising information in the oddest places. I was going through another branch of my family this week, looking to add information about distant and not-so-distant cousins. One can get side-tracked with so many families to research or other projects to get done. So, every once in a while, it is useful to go back and look for data for those individuals and/or their progeny that have been ignored.

I found a military service record for Robert Shepheard Munday, a first cousin, twice removed. As can be surmised from his name, he was closely related to my direct line. His mother, in fact, was a sister to my great-grandfather, James Shepheard (1865-1940).

I had not looked at the family of Mary Jane (Shepheard) Munday (1858-1929) for a while. I had her birth, marriage and death records, along with information about her husband, Robert Munday (1850-1902). But I had not followed up with their children. They had five together; he had four from a previous marriage. I thought it was time I tried to find out what happened to that line, perhaps see if there are any descendants still alive that might be contacted.

I will be ordering the formal BMD records  for all the children from the General Record Office for England and Wales shortly. In the mean time I thought I would see what might be available online on Ancestry, Findmypast or other sources. I did find the family members on most censuses but none were married before 1911 so their families will not be shown on census summaries, other than perhaps the 1939 Register. All five children were still living with their parents in 1901. Other types of records then were wide open to search.

I did find a marriage for Robert Shepheard Munday to Mable Louise Laver in 1916. At the time he was shown as a Sergeant in the Army Veterinary Corps. From that information I thought I could find information about him in the UK military records.

His service file, sourced on Ancestry, contained 27 pages. Robert Munday (he was never shown with his second name) enlisted on 11 December 1915, just a couple of months after the Great War began. His next of kin was given as his mother, Mary Jane Munday. That was amended in 1916 to name his wife. He served with the Bedfordshire Regiment at veterinary hospitals in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex in England, but did not go overseas. He was demobilized on 15 July 1919.

 

Portion of military service record for Robert (Shepheard) Munday; retrieved 3 February 2018 from Ancestry.com

The service record also showed the birth of his first child, Robert Stanley James Munday, on 17 June 1917, in Herne Bay, Kent, so I had one name for a succeeding generation.

The surprising bits of information in the service file, though, were three letters written to his commanding officers from a Florence L. Stagg. They demonstrate another side to the man, perhaps not dissimilar to other young (single) men in the military of almost any time period, but a bit sad in some respects. Her letters stated:

March 20^th, 1918

Sir,

I am sorry to trouble you but would you kindly give me the address of No. 0325 Sgt R. S. Munday as I am very anxious to hear from him as I have not heard from him for a long time, & I am feeling very worried to know if he is still alright. I should be very grateful if you could help me & give me Sgt. R. S. Munday add. I have enclosed penny stamp for reply.

Yours truly

F. Stagg

 

Letter from F. Stagg in military service record for Robert (Shepheard) Munday; retrieved 3 February 2018 from Ancestry.com

Ms Stagg did not receive Sgt. Munday’s address as the army would not give out the information but her letter was forwarded to Robert. The note sounded innocent enough but subsequent correspondence from her offered more to her story, as well as Robert’s. From the dates of the letters, there appears there may have been even more correspondence from Ms Stagg that was not preserved in the file.

 

[31 November 1918]

Sir,

In answer to the letter I received this morning, would you kindly give me an address I could find Sgt. R. Munday, 63035. It was a great shock to me when I saw in the letter he was married as being the mother of his child. (age 5 yrs.) He had already promised me marriage some time ago but owing to money matters it was postponed. I should feel exceedingly grateful if you could help me in the way to find him. The Court will allow me to claim 2/11 from the Government as I was told he had others dependence on him. I am wanting to find him as I am at my wits end to know how to go on to keep this dear little girl, as the money I earn only just keeps myself as I am only a Domestic Servant. I have waited each year, hoping R. Munday, would try and help me with her up keep, and as it is going into the six year, the expense increases and the struggle in life is more than I can bare.

Apologizing for so troubling you.

Yours Respectfully

F. Stagg

Florence’s demands for support must have resulted in some success but she was to be disappointed later.

[14 July 1919]

Dear Sir,

I trust you will pardon the libity [sic] I am taking in writing to you, but I have just received a form from the pay office telling me my allowance is to be stopped after the 12^th of Aug.

Would be so kind as to give me R. Munday address where a letter will find him after he is demobilised, as I am quite unable to help keep his little girl ag 6 yrs without his assistance. And I am nearly worried to death to know what to do. Please do not let him know I have wrote to you for it would perhaps only make matters worse and I do not wish to take the affair into Court again.

Apologizing for so troubling you

Yours respectfully

F. L. Stagg

There is nothing further in the file that indicates how the situation was resolved, if it ever was. One can observe in the military record (image above) that the birth of Robert's first son happened only seven months into his marriage, so he appears to have had a history with the ladies. 

I did find some information about Florence Lilian Stagg in various other records. There was a baptism of Dorothy Lilian Emily on 9 September 1913 at St. James Ealing parish church in London. Only the mother, a cook at 69 Grosvenor Road, is named. Dorothy’s birth was registered in Brentford Registration District.

 

Baptism record for Dorothy Lilian Emily Stagg, presumed daughter of Robert Shepheard Munday; retrieved 3 February 2018 from Ancestry.com

In 1911 Florence is shown to be a housemaid at 8 Grange Park, Ealing, London. That was also the area where the Munday family lived in 1911 (55 Windermere Road, South Ealing). Windermere Road is only about a mile apart from both Grange Park and Grosvenor Road, suggesting Robert and Florence met each some place in the community.

Florence married William Henry Hillcoat in 1923. Both she and her daughter, Dorothy, are shown on the 1939 Register, living at 5 Radbourne Avenue, Ealing, London. Dorothy was listed with the Hillcoat surname, was single and worked as a “Ladies Hairdresser.” Florence died in 1988. Dorothy died in 1991, having never married.

 

1939 Register showing Florence and Dorothy Hillcoat (both nee Stagg); retrieved 5 February from Findmypast.com

Did Robert live up to his responsibilities prior to being forced to do so by a court order? Did he escape to veterinary school and then to the army to avoid contact with Florence? Did father and daughter ever have any relationship?

What was unexpected in my search for information on my family lines was to find information about the Florence and Dorothy affair in a military service record. Just shows that one should not rule out any source.

From Somewhere Else

Every ancestor I have looked for lived somewhere else than where I grew up!

This is, of course, a problem almost all genealogists face – certainly for those of us who live in North America. Most members of past families we are interested in finding more about almost all came from another part of the world. Our countries were built and populated by immigrants, primarily in just the last two hundred years. And after they arrived here, they got all mixed together.

Within just a few generations I have direct ancestors that were born in England, Scotland and parts of Europe. They arrived in the New World between the 1600s and 1900s. Some of them started in one place in the eastern parts of Canada and the US and then they and/or their descendants, moved across the continent, stopping in various localities to put down temporary roots and have a few children.

The places just in North America where members of our extended families lived are spread from Maryland to California in the US and from Newfoundland to British Columbia in Canada.

Many ancestors also moved around the British Isles as well, of course, long before one individual or family decided to brave a voyage across the ocean.

Between my wife and I we have direct ancestors who were born, married or died in Canada, the United States, England, Scotland and other countries in Europe – in what are now the provinces, states, counties or major urban centres shown in the table below:

Canada	United States	England	Scotland	Europe
Alberta	Indiana	Cornwall	Argyllshire	Germany
British Columbia	Kansas	Cumberland	Banffshire	Ireland
Ontario	Kentucky	Devon	Dunbartonshire
	Maryland	Leicestershire	Glasgow
	Missouri	London	Lanarkshire
	New York	Middlesex	Morayshire
	North Carolina	Warwickshire	Shetland
	North Dakota		Stirlingshire
	Ohio
	Oklahoma
	Oregon
	Pennsylvania
	Virginia

Among all the myriad brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins – both direct and related by marriage (now over 9,700 individuals in our family tree) – we have connections in: all of the other seven Canadian provinces plus one northern territory; 32 other states in the USA; 32 other counties in England; 15 other counties in Scotland; 11 other countries in Europe; and 11 more countries in the rest of the world. Not to mention the hundreds of localities within all these provinces, states, counties or countries! There are probably many others which we have not yet identified.

That’s a lot of places to look for information! Learning a little about the history and customs of even the most important places in our family story can be interesting but challenging. From my personal perspective, researching the natural histories of those regions is equally important and exciting – which, of course, adds to the research.

 

Universale Descrittione Di Tutta la Terra Conosciuta Fin Oui (A Universal description of the Whole Known Earth), by Paolo Forlani, 1565

If I lived in Southwest Devon, England, where my Shepheard ancestors originated, I would be able to nip over to the archives in Plymouth in a matter of minutes, or travel to Stirlingshire, Scotland, where one of my paternal grandmother’s line is from, in an morning by car, or take the train into London to look at records in The National Archives. I could take in regular monthly meetings and conferences in many parts of the country where ancestral families lived with only short drives. My wife and I could travel to northern Scotland and spend a few days exploring the villages where her parents and their parents and their parents were born and grew up. Sounds great doesn’t it?

I doubt if our family is unique in having such a long list of places where family members originated or lived. I suspect it is not that unusual among researchers from our part of the world, though, who, like us, descended from immigrants to a new land.

Is it any wonder we have gravitated to online sources of information so readily?

Were your ancestors city-dwellers?

Most family historians, if they can trace their ancestors back far enough, will find that their families mostly lived in the country and made their living as farmers.

During the Little Ice Age (ca1300-1850) physical and environmental conditions made it more difficult to make a living farming. Destitute people began moving to towns and cities in search of work, greatly increasing populations in those centres. The results were overcrowding with continuing high rates of unemployment.

Studies by The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure showed that males engaged in agricultural work fell from about 75% of the population in 1500 to around 40% by 1800. At the same time, employment in the secondary sector, primarily involving manufacturing, and the tertiary or service sector, which included such occupations as teaching, began to grow (in Figure 1 below).

Technology had a major influence on the need for and the numbers of people required in the agricultural business. The growing use of mechanized farming methods meant that fewer people were needed to produce the same amount of food. Enclosure, beginning in the 16^th century and culminating in the 1800s, resulted in larger farms but with fewer workers needed. There was also a shift in many regions to pastoral farming. Large tracts of land became unsuitable for cultivation as the climate changed for the worse during the Little Ice Age and growing conditions were poorer. Many land-owners switched to livestock, particularly sheep, which needed more area but less attendants.

The growth of the textile industry, built on the increasing supply of raw materials from both foreign and domestic sources – those sheep again – attracted large numbers of workers who, of course, had to move to the urban centres for steady employment. The population of London, for example, doubled between 1801 and 1851, and grew seven-fold by the end of the century. Textile manufacturing centres such as Birmingham grew at similar astounding rates: from about 1,500 in 1550; to 24,000 by 1750; to 74,000 by 1800; to over 230,000 in 1850; and over 520,000 by 1900.

 

Birmingham population from 1538 to 2009 (from Wikipedia: History of Birmingham)

The rush to the cities brought with it crowded and unsanitary conditions and the expansion of slum areas inhabited by the poorest in society. It also gave many people more opportunities to succeed in trades and professions not available in previous centuries.

Some areas, such as that around Birmingham, became the locus for jobs in secondary industries such as manufacturing. Maps produced by the Cambridge Group over several centuries show the changes in work-related sectors. The area around Manchester is a particularly good example of how the industrial revolution took over during the 18^th century with secondary sector jobs climbing rapidly and spreading over a larger area.

Most of us who trace our ancestors will likely find our earliest family members on the farms or at least eking their livings in food-producing enterprises. Those around less than two hundred years were very possibly raising their families in urban centres. Some researchers may find that some family members were city-dwellers as far back as they can be found. Perhaps they were tradesmen assisting in the building of cities during the medieval period or merchants involved in local or international trade. Or members of the political establishment, including the nobility.

The differences between rural or urban origins will probably have resulted in very different family histories. It might be worth looking at how such origins affected subsequent generations, particularly with regard to their choice or accessibility to various occupations, land ownership, education or migration.