Military Chat

Either myself or the computer are going out the window! New to this siteso please bear with me if I make mistakes. I'm trying to locate my grandfathers war records. His name was George Davies born in 1893 in Thomas St, Oswaldtwistle. I believe he moved to Tyldsley when about 18 yrs old. I think he joined up to some Welsh horse regiment that was recruiting in the local areas. He had a few medals ( which he once sent back saying '' they were promised a land fit for heroes and he could'nt even find a job''.) He talked about Constantinople so he may have fought round there. Any help would be much appreciated my mind is boggled just trying to navigate round site and losing stuff

Is this your George during the 1901 census - just for reference:

Name:George Davies
Age:8
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1893
Relation:Son
Father's Name:James Davies
Mother's Name:Susannah Davies
Gender:Male
Where born:Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, England
Civil Parish:Oswaldtwistle
Ecclesiastical parish:Emmanuel
County/Island:Lancashire
Country:England
Street Address:
Occupation:
Condition as to marriage:
Education:
Employment status:
View Image
Registration District:Blackburn
Sub-registration District:Oswaldtwistle
ED, institution, or vessel:12
Neighbors:View others on page
Household Schedule Number:78
Piece:3918
Folio:112
Page Number:13
Household Members:NameAge
James Davies 42
Susannah Davies 45
George Davies 8
Elizabeth Davies 7
Catherine Davies 18


EDIT - For reference, during the 1911 cenusus George is still at home with his father James (Widowed) and sister Elizabeth at 5 Green Street, Oswaldwistle.

I can't see anything obvious - service record - however only a small percentage survived WWII

Using http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
Births Jun 1893 (>99%)
Davies George Blackburn 8e 480

Using http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/
Baptism: 2 Aug 1893 Immanuel, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, England
George Davis - Son of James Davis & Susannah
Born: 9 Jun 1893
Abode: 17 Thomas St
Occupation: Cotton spinner
Baptised by: Boubly Haslewood Vicar
Register: Baptisms 1890 - 1898, Page 504
Source: LDS Film 1470816

Using http://www.lancashirebmd.org.uk/
Lancashire Birth indexes for the years: 1893
Surname Forename(s) Sub-District Registers At Mother's Maiden Name Reference
DAVIES George Oswaldtwistle Preston SUMNER OS/58/8
DAVIES George Oswaldtwistle Preston WILKINSON OS/58/8

Lancashire Marriage indexes for the years: 1878
Surname Forename(s) Surname Forename(s) Church / Register Office Registers At Reference
WILKINSON John SUMNER Susannah Blackburn, St Michael with St John & Holy Trinity Blackburn CE13/2/309



Abt 70% of the WW1 service records got destroyed by fire. Ancestry has the remaining 30%, some of which are quite charred around the edges - most of my grandad's pages have only 50% of page readable. You'll have to access these yourself, maybe at your local main library. The main bother with your guy is there's 528 hits for George Davies - although abt half have a mid-name, it's still a lot of checking - there's also a couple of plain Geo Davies and a couple of plain G Davies.

Unlike the service records, almost everyone in uniform got at least one medal, as well as a number of civilians. These madals are entered on their medal cards, and essentially all of these survived. The Army cards are also on Ancestry, but it will be hard to identify your George Davies from these, unless you know he went to some theatre other than France first, like Gallipoli or East Africa, etc, but even that won't be bother free - a Davies serving in a Welsh regiment - whatever next? There are 465 plain George's here, plus 12 plain Geo's, plus 54 plain G's.. The meda card doesn't give much info - name, rank and serial #, regiment, medals awarded, date of first entry into a theatre of war, and which theatre (usually France) - so not much identifying info, unless you've already gotten his service # from his record, or from a BMD.cert, either as a principal, or as an informant.

Thank you to all for finding info I was looking for, also for info re WW1. Its all so confusing at first.