LITMIR.BIZ

      LIFETIMES: THE TALE OF THE NEARLY LOST SOLDIER

      WHEN MARK CURTIS and his son Daniel started having their family tree traced three years ago, they could never have predicted what a complicated story would emerge.

      Mark’s great-grandfather Frank was born in India in about 1884/5, son of a soldier called George Curtis, though by the time of Frank’s Lancashire marriage in 1909, George had become a postman. Frank’s birth and baptism were recorded twice in the Army Register Book of births, marriages and deaths, a copy of which is at the FRC, once by George’s regiment and secondly by the Royal Army Service Corps, and showed he was born in Bangalore on 15 June 1885, son of George Curtis, a sergeant in the 8th Hussars, and his wife Mary Richards.

      George, son of William Curtis, a labourer, and Mary married in church at Trinulghery, Secunderabad on 30 July 1884 and the marriage record showed George was 30, so born about 1853–4. However, searches for his birth or baptism either in the army birth/baptism records at the FRC, the English and Welsh General Registration records or elsewhere all drew complete blanks. A record of George’s birth simply was not to be found.

      FURTHERING THE SEARCH

      We knew George became a postman. Postmen’s records are at the Post Office Archives (see here) and the pension records showed only one likely candidate, whose pension started in 1919. His application told us he had joined the Royal Mail in 1899 and had served with ‘diligence and fidelity’. His date of birth was stated to be 22 June 1855, a year later than the age suggested on the marriage record. But even with this new information, a record of the birth was still not to be found.

      We therefore tried his army records, finding his service papers in TNA, in class WO 97. These told us masses about George, including that he was 5’ 8" tall with a chest measuring 31/4’ and that he had a sallow complexion, brown hair, brown eyes, a good physique and a pulse of 64 beats per minute. We learned of his travels to India and South Africa, and back, the diseases he had suffered there: like most soldiers, he caught both hepatitis and syphilis, but he continued to serve. In the end he was posted back to England, to Canterbury, not far from the Royal Dragoons pub on the appropriately named Military Road. He later suffered a riding accident while serving in Ireland, leaving the army there in 1898; his conduct had been ‘exemplary’ and ‘temperate’, which means he did not drink too heavily. For the record, his death certificate shows that he died of pneumonia and a fractured bone on 18 November 1939, aged 84, at 41 Elswick Row, Newcastle.

      FURTHER DELVING

      But where was he born? His army discharge papers (see here) stated he was born on 22 June 1855 at St Mary’s, Reading. However, no birth record could be found there, nor a corresponding baptism, and neither he nor his father William Curtis, the labourer, were in the 1861 census. It turns out Reading was not his birthplace, and we still do not know why he said it was.

      In fact, the 1901 census (see here) states his birthplace as ‘Barnby’, Suffolk, but in this record he is misentered as George Carter and, in any case, at the time the research was being undertaken, the 1901 census had not yet been released. However, his army papers also gave his next of kin as Mary and, before his marriage, as ‘Mother, Harriet———Barnaby near Beccles [Suffolk]’.

      Although it is most useful for events before General Registration began in 1837, the International Genealogical Index on www.familysearch.org can sometimes be helpful solving mysteries after then (see here). There was no George Curtis entry, which was obviously right, but further searching revealed a William Curtis, son of William and Harriet, baptised on 24 June 1860 at Barnby, Suffolk. This certainly seemed to indicate the right family – and the original entry confirmed that the father, William, was indeed a labourer.

      As George was supposedly born around 1853–5, the 1861 census of Barnby was the next stop. This revealed William Curtis the labourer at Back Lane, Barnby, with his wife Harriet and children, including William’s step-son George Moore, aged eight.

      FOUND!

      Taken aback, yet very excited, we sought a birth certificate. George Moore was born on 22 June 1852, at Barnby, as George, son of Harriet Moore, an unmarried woman from Barnby. And to seal the case we found the marriage of William Curtis and Harriet Moore taking place on 12 April 1855.

      I cannot explain why George said he was born in Reading, but it seems that sometime after the 1861 census was taken, William and Harriet decided to alter George’s surname and year of birth to make it fall within the year of their wedding. This made George seem like their legitimate son, or else George decided to do this himself. Illegitimacy carried some stigma at that time, and perhaps it was considered best all round if the matter was glossed over.

      The moral of the story, as Mark and Daniel discovered, is that the answer to a family mystery can be found, but you must keep on seeking new information about the person you are after: eventually, with sufficient persistence, you may well succeed.

      Top: The birth record of George Moore, later called George Curtis, revealed at last. Bottom: Medical certificate from 1875 for George Curtis on enlistment.

      WHERE

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