De Ruvignys Roll of Honour.

enfield

Just going through the five volumes of De Ruvigneys Roll of Honour one page at a time. Although there is an index to them it is just for names. Going through it one page at a time you can see all the men with Irish connections missed in other databases, CWGC SDGW MR etc. It would be a Godsend if N@MP digitised them but until then its one page at a time but must be done to find and remember these men. I reckon I will have it completed in about about a month. It will show up men I have missed in the past, especially officers. About 2,000 pages, but it keeps me outta the pubs..
Regards.
Tom.

johnny_doyle

Tom,

De Ruvigny's is online at Ancestry. Get a subscription and head over to a pub with wi-fi ;-)

Here's the blurb about it on Ancestry :

About UK, De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914-1924

This data collection contains biographies of over 26,000 casualties of the Great War. Casualties include men (both officers and ranks) from the British Army, Navy, and Air Force. 7,000 of the biographies include photographs.

This Roll of Honour was originally compiled into 5 volumes by the 9th Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval who was very interested in genealogical research. The amount of information available for each entry varies according to sources used. At the very least, generally the man’s regiment, and place and date of death are provided. However, if the family of a casualty provided further background and additional details, then this information was included in the biography as well, sometimes resulting in very detailed biographies.

While the date range of the collection covers from the beginning of the war to well after its end in 1918, the majority of the entries are of casualties who died in the earlier years.

enfield

On Ancestry its searchable by a word?
Regards.
Tom.

johnny_doyle

it has a keyword search. Not quite sure how good it is. Fire me something you're interested in and know the result for and we'll see if it's any good.

enfield

Okiedokie, throw in 'Thorpe Lodge' and see if you get a hit.
Regards.
Tom.

johnny_doyle

nope. Came up with nothing - used the phrase without quotes, with double quotes and with single quotes.

Thorpe on it's own produced a number of individuals as did Lodge. Not good.

enfield

Thorpe lodge is under Boxer, Hugh in Book 2. Did that name come up?
Regards.
Tom

johnny_doyle

only when entering the surname. Hugh Edward Richard Boxer DSO.

When entering Thorpe as a keyword, only soldiers with the surname Thorpe came up; ditto, Lodge as a keyword only brought up soldiers with the surname Lodge.

Dublin as a keyword brings up nothing; Ireland as a keyword only brings up soldiers with the surname Ireland. Very disappointing.

enfield

I was worth a try, I appreciate it.
Regards.
Tom.

johnny_doyle

not sure if this helps but there are 2 volumes online that can be downloaded as PDFs (large though) or read online :


Volume I
http://www.archive.org/details/rollofhonourbiog01ruvi


Volune III (text says II but book is III)
http://www.archive.org/details/rollofhonourbiog02ruvi

enfield

Thank you Johnny.
Regards.
Tom

Snickers Man

I have started to use the digital versions to which the links were given above (for which much thanks) to cross reference data I have collected about Irish soldiers killed in 1915 and I find that there is a real paucity of references to men serving in Irish regiments.

One would almost think they were deliberately excluded!

I have not completed an exhaustive search yet but out of about 30 names for which I have looked, I have only found about two or three that were even mentioned. And so far, I have restricted my search to officers.

Mind you, the foreword at the start of the book gives some clue as to the prejudices of the author. The emphasis is mine.

"These men have laid down their lives for England...

..[Their] sacrifice has been reached after the manner of our race, for the benefit of others,for the sake of those ideals which we rightly regard alike as the foundation and the characteristics of our nation.

From the fringes of the Empire men came homing back to the Motherland to shoulder her troubles and die for her alongside of the veterans who had already grown grey in the service of the King, and of the boys from London
Town...
....
Here are their names, officers and men together, as they fought and died for this dear Empire which they have loved so exceeding well.

If we are going to remember our compatriots' sacrifice, we must also remember the nature of the altar on which that sacrifice was laid.

enfield

Hello all.
I spent the last three weeks going through De Ruvignys Roll of Honour, name by name looking for Irishmen that I might have missed using standard references like SDGW IMR, CWGC etc. What a wonderful wealth of information it really is. I can see from volume 1 to volume 5 that as the project progressed NOK were increasingly adding information to the names instead of just saying that he died on such and such a ship or KIA. When we get to volume 5 we see that most names have their parents birth place (but less wives information than before for some reason). I found over 900 Irishmen and women in the 5 volumes, some that I would not have found otherwise. Who would have thought of looking for members of the YMCA, Nursing services or the Mercantile Marine? Family connections become clearer, sometimes you can see how they were related. I was surprised the amount of wives re-married officers shortly after the death of their husband. One thing that stood out above all else was the colossal death rate among Scotsmen during the war. I thought the amount Irishmen would be impressive but the Scots lost 50 times more. I could also see that there was not a lot of unemployment before enlistment with men having decent trades and jobs. Some casualties just gave their townland, without naming the county which can cause some confusion, as and Irish Enfield is spelled the same as an English Enfield, etc.
Having gone through ‘The Waterford War Dead’ with my new list from De Ruv, I found 4 men that I would never have found unless De Ruv is gone through name by name. Ancestry has De Ruv and the only search facility is by name.
It was a project that I need to tackle and putting it off would just frustrate me with doubts that I might have missed someone.
Anyway, there it is for what it is worth.

Kind regards.
Tom.