A route to the heroes of the past

May 17 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

In the third installment of our genealogy series, Peter Elson looks at how you can trace your ancestors who served in the military

IT WAS quite a shock to find reference to three long-departed Liverpool Scottish soldiers bearing my slightly unusual surname suddenly spring onto a computer screen.

Seated in the fascinating (but sadly soon to close) Liverpool Scottish Museum, on the corner of Edge Lane and Botanic Road, I felt an emotional link with the First World War I had never before experienced.

Were they relatives or not? The answer eluded me as the database, even after 12 years hard work, is still incomplete, but there were the names.

More than 1,327 enquiries from all over the world have been made over the last year or so to the museum from people searching for information about their ancestors’ war service.

Liverpool Scottish is just one of many British regiments and battalions that for centuries served worldwide. More than ever, people are intrigued about the mysterious life that, say, their grandfather led in the war, or in the armed forces of times long past.

“Before the advent of email, people wrote to me and there was a sense of more personal contact, but now with the internet we’ve speeded up,” says Dennis Reeves, the museum’s curator.

“It can be frustrating as half the people seem to forget to give full names, assuming that we know the old soldiers as well as their families. We need every morsel of information.

“Other inquiries come from medal dealers and military memorabilia and uniform collectors. The information we give to relatives of those who have served is free, but outsiders are charged.”

Dennis started cataloguing and filing Liverpool Scottish past soldiers in 1969 when he started the archive with just two old battalion volumes.

There was a Testament Book of 1915 which recorded those who had taken the oath of allegiance and the Draft Book which listed those soldiers regarded fit enough to ship off to France and the trenches.

“Unfortunately each time a new adjutant arrived he slung the previous book out of his office, so we’re lucky to have this one,” says Dennis, who has also co-written a history of the Liverpool Scottish, Bravest of Hearts.

From 1916 each British Army recruit received a six figure unique number, instead of the previous system which in 1900 simply started with soldier number one.

“Once we’ve got a name from an inquirer, I get his unique number which is crucial to searching, make an index card and find a photo to start a file. For every medal we have, we try to get a biography alongside.

“A big help has been the pension records going on-line to add a whole new dimension of extra information.”

Just dipping into the Testament Book at random, we note Gilbert Gibbs, original registration number 3766 who lived at 28 Lusitania Road, Walton, and enlisted on September 17, 1914, aged 35. This then yields his approximate date of birth.

By cross referencing to the database of the King’s Regiment (Liverpool) – of which Liverpool Scottish was a battalion – much more emerges.

Thanks to Joe Devereux, from Liverpool, now of Cheltenham, who has compiled the database, we discover that Mr Gibbs was a compositor at the Liverpool Evening Express, later merged into the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

Mr Gibbs, married to Alice, had previous service with the First Liverpool Volunteer Battalion and volunteered for overseas service. He was 5ft 6ins tall, weighed 150lbs and was in good physical shape.

“The Liverpool Scottish was ‘collars and cuffs’, meaning it attracted office types and middle class professionals who paid for their own kilts and kit at 10s a year,” says Dennis.