Christmas Update

The past month has been quite hectic - with Christmas and all that comes with it to transcribing over 85 War Memorials.

I thought it made sense, well to me anyway, to sit and transcribe the images and then upload the resulting pages - at least they can then be seen by either family, friends or researchers and then do the hard and time consuming bit - finding out who they are, what they did in their lifetime and whose children they were, you know the important stuff, the bit that makes them a person and not just a name on a slab of stone or in a book hidden behind glass.

In this batch there have been some interesting and unusual memorials from the small village memorial to quite large towns and one in particular, hidden from the road and only identified by a small roadsign, that was damaged beyond repair and replaced by a new memorial only a few yearsago - the original now rests in the local churchyard. Some memorials are informative and give full rank, regiment and full name - easy ! While others only tell of an initial and surname - not so easy but we keep on trying to get as much information about these people as possible.

Sometimes the memorials are in plain sight, on main road, churchyards, outside prominent buildings but sometimes they are hidden away and you would be surprised how many people when asked where the war memorial is simply look very vague. But a few questions later i.e. where is the churchyard, where do the villagers or townspeople lay the poppies and its found. Many people seem a little embarassed that they do not know where their memorial is but with a smile and a brief explanation as to why I want to know and all is well - and then another memorial is added to the awaiting transcriptions listing.

So, within the next few weeks there will be over 30 Scottish Memorials including 21 pre WW1 memorials and over 45 from Sussex and Kent, there are also a large number of French and Belgian memorial also awaiting transcribing.

If you want to know if a memorial has been photographed ready for transcribing please email me and I'll have a look in my listings.

Have a Happy, whats left of Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2010

Carol