Happy New Year. I hope that everyone has a safe and prosperous 2013 ahead of them.

At the start of the year, I like to look back at what has been done on the Canadian Great War Project site. Over the past year, we’ve seen a number of new people contributing, which is great to see, and also some that have drifted away, which is also expected.

If anyone wonders about the value that this site provides, I’d offer the following. In 2012, we had 175,000 people access the site which is pretty good for a site with such focused content. The peak visitors are in November, which is to be expected. What is pretty amazing though, is that the average number of pages viewed per visit is over 9. In the history of the site, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this number higher than 5, so this is an incredible improvement.

This is indeed a collaborative effort, in which I personally play a very small part. All of the above is due to the small, but dedicated, group of people that provide the content to the site. To all of you, I offer a huge “Thank You!”.

And I’d also like to provide a very big thank you to the very small group that toils in the background helping me administer the site. Without you, the site would grind to a halt very quickly.

The content of the site has grown quite a bit over the past year. We are still a long way from getting the 650,000 men and women who served entered, but we are making progress. We’ve also added a number of new transcriptions and photo’s as well.

Here is a summary of where we are:

We’ve had some innovative uses of the data from the site as well. Patrick Cain of Global News created “Grief's geography: Interactive map of Toronto's First World War dead” , based on the entries from this site.

There are a number of projects I’ve started and am getting closer to completion. One is the John Cushnie collection, a set of letters and personal diary entries that John wrote from 1916 to 1918. I hope to get this up on the site later today.

I also started to work on transcribing the 1931 government report “Reparations 1930-1931 Report - Maltreatment or Prisoners of War“. I’d like to get this completed this year. Many of the stories in this report are horrifying.

Finally, I started a long overdue overhaul of the site and navigation. This proved a bit more complicated than I originally though, but I hope to get it done early this year.

Again, thank you to everyone who contributes to this site. I get about 10 eMails a day concerning the site, and the vast majority express their appreciation for the content of the site, and this is due to the efforts that you have made.

Thanks, and Happy New Year

marc

Do a Google search on the phrase “We went up Vimy Ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians” and there are 9,500 hits returned. The comment is attributed to an anonymous veteran, but it is a strong sentiment, forever associated with being Canadian.

The battle of Vimy Ridge was fought on Easter Monday, April 9^th, 1917. It was part of the Battle of Arras, and it was the first time that all four Canadian Divisions fought together during the war. The objective of the Canadians was to capture the high ground, or escarpment, at the northwest end of the battle area. The area, known as Vimy Ridge, had been held by the Germans since October, 1914. The French had tried to take the ridge in May 1915. The British, in 1916 held the ground, and tried to disrupt the Germans using mining operations, but made no serious attempts to attack the German positions. The Canadians took over the area in October 1916.

In January, 1917, the commander of the 1^st Canadian Division attended, along with two other officers, a series of lectures hosted by the French, describing their experiences at Verdun. Currie, who later went on to command the Canadian Corps, came back with the belief that by using artillery more effectively, and by training the men using scale mockups of the battlefield they could take Vimy Ridge. On April 9, 1917 they did exactly that.

Vimy Ridge was the first major victory by the allies during the Great War. The men that fought knew that it was a great accomplishment, and it bonded them as “Canadians”. Many people will refer to Vimy Ridge as the defining moment in Canadian history; when Canada first came together as a nation. The victory was applauded in newspapers around the world. The commander of the Canadian Corps, Sir Julian Byng, received a promotion as a result, and later became the Governor-General of Canada, a very popular appointment at the time. Byng’s replacement as commander of the Canadian Corps was Arthur Currie, becoming the first Canadian to ever command a Canadian army. The impact that the Canadians had at Vimy, and through the rest of 1917 and 1918 hastened the end of the war, led to Prime Minister Borden having a seat at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and had a direct impact on the Statute of Westminster in 1931. The cost was 3,598 men killed, 7,000 wounded at Vimy.

But that isn’t what I want to write about.

What I do want to write about was an article by Don Chapman in the Vancouver Observer. It was published on April 9, 2012; the 95^th anniversary of the start of the battle of Vimy Ridge.

Chapman is very misleading in his article. He uses Vimy Ridge as a headline to engage the reader, but his story has no direct ties to Vimy Ridge, or the Great War, or even soldiers who fought in the war. It appears that the timing was opportune, and Mr. Chapman took advantage of it. In many ways, this reminds me of sensationalist reporting.

Jackie Scott was born in England, out of wedlock to a Canadian soldier and a British woman who later became his wife. This was during the Second World War. Her father was a Canadian soldier, who fought for his country. There is no dispute that he was a Canadian citizen. What is morally reprehensible is that she was denied Canadian citizenship, despite having been born to a Canadian, living most of her life in Canada. She worked in Ontario, paid taxes and voted in elections. But she isn’t considered a Canadian because laws that covered children born out of wedlock stated that the child would be the legal product of the mother, with no rights to her father’s identity. When her mother married her father, the mother was granted Canadian citizenship, but that did not apply to children. Bill C-37 was passed in 2009 to correct this, but was made retroactive only to 1947, several years after Ms. Scott was born. This article does a great job of explaining the issue.

Mr. Chapman brings up the point that in the letter that Ms. Scott received from Citizenship and Immigration (CIC), it is stated that her father was a British subject, not a Canadian citizen because Canadian citizenship did not exist prior to 1947. He then extrapolates this to say that all the soldiers that died at Vimy Ridge were not Canadian. Until I read the article closely, that is the impression that I came away with.

Looking at the facts; Canadians, before 1947, were indeed British subjects. This has little to do with citizenship. That was the “benefit” we enjoyed as a Dominion in the British Commonwealth. So the men that went up Vimy Ridge were British subjects. In the immigration act of 1910, it stated that Canadian citizenship was granted to any British subject who was born in, or had domiciled in Canada for 3 years. In 1914, the Naturalization Act increased the residency requirement to 5 years. By the end of the Great War, there would have been few men or women who served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force who would not be considered Canadian. The person who wrote the letter to Ms. Scott should have understood the distinction between Citizen and Subject. Mistakes do happen, though, such as someone understating the casualties at Vimy Ridge by saying that there were 3,598 casualties, when in fact there were over 10,500. War casualties, and also by the standard definition, always include dead and wounded.

The statement concerning citizenship should not have been made, but it, like any reference to those that served their country (native or adopted) is not germane to the issue. Obviously using statements for their shock value works (Rush Limbaugh makes millions doing this) but it is blatantly wrong to imply a government position on the citizenship of soldiers from either World War based on this.

What is at issue is the fact that some laws, through the years, have been based on 19^th century premises. At that time, women had no rights. Obviously, this is not acceptable in today’s world and this should be rectified. I am quite unhappy that we feel that we need to use the anniversary of Vimy Ridge as a forum for human rights. Bill C-37 was supposed to deal with this, but was retroactive to 1947 only, so there are exceptions, some 250 according to “Reclaiming citizenship for Canadians — a Report on the loss of Canadian citizenship”. These were supposed to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

What I find most troubling, although admittedly I do not know all of the facts in this case, is that Ms. Scott is one of those 250, and has been denied citizenship because of circumstances that are not acceptable in today’s world. The case should be considered with the Canadian Bill of Rights in mind, and with the laws that are in place today. If a government agency is indeed making a decision based on women being considered chattel per pre-1947 law, then Canadians should react with moral outrage.

I’m sure that the intent of Mr. Chapman’s article was to raise awareness of the plight of Ms. Scott. And I would believe that he has been successful in this (else, why would I have written this post).

So, Mr. Chapman, I would come back to the words from that anonymous hero : “We went up Vimy Ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians”. From a moral perspective, and from a legal perspective, I don’t know of anyone who would dispute that. I’m reasonably certain that even Mr. Harper would concur. I’m not prepared to allow your interpretation of a single sentence by a single bureaucrat to denigrate the work done by Government agencies (Veteran's Affairs, Libraries and Archives Canada to name two) who help us preserve the memories of our Canadian military.

On the subject of Ms. Scott; this is just plain wrong. This needs to be rectified. This is a human rights issue, and this is what needs to be raised with the Harper Government.

I was checking my voicemail as I was walking out to my car last night, and found that my wife had called and left a message. “I have some really sad news. Remember Nick and Jennifer? Nick was killed today. They say it was a suicide bomber. This is really sad.”

I can’t claim to have known Nick personally. I may have met him once or twice. I knew him vicariously through conversations that we had at home. My wife, a photographer, would have photo sessions with the Rozanski’s on a regular basis; she started with their engagement, then their wedding, and now whenever Nick was home they would do family sessions with the girls. Occasionally when Nick was deployed Jenny would have some photos done so he could see his two girls growing up.

Of all of the clients that Penney has, the Rozanski’s were the ones that dominated conversations at home. This was Nick’s third deployment as a member of the Ohio National Guard; he had previously served in Kosovo and Iraq, and Penney was ecstatic when Nick came home from one of his deployments. She was outraged when she found out that he came home from one deployment to find that his peacetime job was no longer available to him. She was always laughing when she came home from a photo session with the family, with stories about how happy the family was, and how devoted Nick was to his girls. She expressed her fear when he was deployed. I heard about telephone conversations Penney would have with Jennifer, and Facebook updates that were posted. At least once a week, their names would pop up in conversations.

Jennifer had said that Nick’s posting to Afghanistan was to a relatively safe area. But in the military, there are no guarantees. The reports say that Nick was in a park in Maimanah, the capital of the Faryab province on April 4, 2012, when a suicide bomber rode up on a motorcycle and detonated a bomb he had strapped to his vest. Three US soldiers were killed: Sergeant First Class Shawn Hannon, Sergeant First Class Jeffrey J. Rieck, and Captain Nicholas Rozanski. All were from the Columbus, Ohio area, and all were serving with the 37^th Infantry Brigade of the Ohio National Guard. At least 10 others were also killed, including civilians and members of the Afghan police. The Taliban has claimed responsibility, and like many of these senseless attacks, the actual targets of the attack are unclear.

Last night Penney and I talked about war and soldiers, why young men have to die in a country 7,000 miles away, and why it had to be Nick. We know that soldiers fight because their country asks them to. They fight to preserve the liberties we enjoy. They fight so their children won’t have to. They fight to stop aggression. They fight to preserve peace. They volunteer to do a job that the majority won’t. But when we put the philosophy aside, we know that we cannot rationalize why Nick had to die.

Intellectually we understand that there are sacrifices made by those that serve in the Military, and their families, yet it only becomes “real” when it becomes personal. Nick was a good man. He loved being a soldier. He was a good husband and father. He will never experience the joy of seeing his daughters grow up. And Emma will have only vague recollections of her father, Anna will only have photos and the stories Jenny tells her. Jenny will have to cope with her grief while bringing up these two young girls. The sacrifices that military families make suddenly becomes very real to us, as civilians.

The story of these three men was the lead-in to every Columbus news broadcast last night, and the front page of the newspaper this morning. A week from now this will no longer be considered news and will have faded from our collective memory. It becomes convenient to forget.

Yet the families of these men will be left to cope as best they can, with the support from their friends and family. We pray that they will be able to find the strength to move on with their lives.

Nick was one of the almost 3,000 young men and women in the coalition forces who have lost their lives in Afghanistan. The memory of all of those that serve their country, in every conflict, must be kept alive. If we cannot do this, their sacrifices, and the liberties that we enjoy, have no meaning.

Sergeant First Class Shawn Hannon

Sergeant First Class Jeffrey J. Rieck

Captain Nicholas Rozanski

May you rest in peace.

We thank you for your service, and for your sacrifice.

We will always remember you.

I initially wrote this application in 2006, mainly because I found the Libraries and Archives Canada search engine a bit cumbersome to use. LAC has since updated their search engine, but I’ve kept this program alive (although very much on life support for the past several years). It’s grown past its initial objective, and while it still provides a very flexible front end for the data in the LAC database, it also provides indications to show:

· If there is an entry in the Canadian Great War Project for the individual

· If the soldier has had awards granted (currently limited to the VC, DCM and MM)

· If the soldier has their digitized service files available in the LAC site

· If the soldier has had any courts-martial’s

· If the soldier died in the war

· If the soldier was a POW

Many thanks to Chris Wight for providing the entries for the DCM and MM awards, based on the London Gazette entries. I’ll have a separate post on this, but this is the first time that the Canadian awards have been linked back to the soldiers in the LAC database. This was a tremendous job, reconciling the names and regimental numbers so that there is a definitive, cross referenced list.

Many thanks also to Chris, Richard, Al, Dan, Michael, Sarge, Henrik, Ed and Les for beta testing the application.

The application currently runs only on a Microsoft platform. It has been tested against Windows XP and Windows 7, but there is no reason why it will not run on Windows Vista; I just don’t have a test machine with Vista installed.

You can find the application here.

The first house that we owned was in Beaconsfield, a suburb of Montreal. We moved in on Christmas Eve, many years ago,, and on Christmas Day the doorbell rang, and when we opened the door there was a very small bundle of white fur; an 8 week old Samoyed that my wife thought should join our household. We named her “Inja” and that began a longtime love affair with Sammy’s, the subject of another blog.

The couple that lived next to us was a retired couple that had immigrated to Canada from Scotland in the mid 60’s. Jim and Wyn Dobbie were great neighbours. Their brogue was still quite strong, and it did take a while before I could easily understand them. Jim had the only snowblower on the street, and on winter mornings he’d clear his driveway, and then help out with the others on the street; as long as you had made an effort to do it yourself, first. If he saw you out shoveling, he’d come and help you finish it. If he didn’t see you doing it, you were out of luck. Being older, and perhaps wiser, I realize what a good strategy this was.

Over the course of time, we had another Sammy, Kodey, join our family, and slowly built up the relationships with the neighbours on the street. This wasn’t all that easy. Years later we were still considered “the new people”. And it turned out that Jim didn’t really like dawgs. He never came out and said som, but he’d have a very disapproving look on his face whenever he saw them.

Jim was a piper, and he played for the Black Watch. He also gave lessons, which typically sent our dawgs scurrying for someplace to hide; listening to students learn bagpipes is not enjoyable. But often, at night, Jim would be in the basement practicing, and we’d have the two dawgs begging to go outside and listen. They’d sit on a small hill that gave them a good view of the Dobbie house, and just listen. When he’d finish, they’d ask to come in. It never mattered how hot or cold it was, if Jim was playing, they’d stay out. And on many occasions, I’d be out there with them, enjoying the music.

I mentioned this to Jim once, and he responded with “So ye think my playing is for the dogs, do ye?” and he walked off.

In our second year living there we started to host an annual New Year’s Eve party, and over time, it became an event that everyone on the street looked forward to. About our third year there, we asked Jim if he would pipe in the New Year for us. Jim was a bit reluctant, but Wyn told him to just get his pipes and do it. He brought them in, and set himself up to play, and at the first sounds coming out of the pipes, our two dawgs went tearing up towards Jim. You could see he was nervous, Kodey was a very big dawg, weighing about 120 pounds, and Jim wasn’t sure what their intentions were. But they stopped just in front of Jim, plunked themselves down and watched him. Jim started playing, marching back and forth, and the dawgs heads moving back and forth with him, with big Sammy smiles on their faces.

From that day forward, nobody could say anything bad about our two dawgs. One Saturday, a bunch of us were outside and the dawgs were out back, barking at a squirrel, and someone mentioned that they were making noise. Jim turned immediately and said “I’ll nae hear you saying anything bad about those dogs!”

Now, years later, one of the regrets I have is that I don’t have any recordings of Jim playing the pipes. I often think about the “concerts” we had, where the sound of the pipes would be perfectly clear and I’d be sitting outside with the dawgs, just listening.

When I was at the Black Watch Armory a month or so back, I picked up a copy of the 150th Anniversary CD. Cal Kufta, the archivist at the Black Watch Regimental Museum wasn’t about to say that Jim was one of the pipers on the CD, but he didn’t rule it out either. So I’ll choose to believe that he is, and in the evenings I’ll up on the couch with our current generation of Samoyeds and listen to “Jim” play.

Sometime over the Christmas break, Chris Wight let me know that the Black Watch/Royal Highlanders of Canada had published the Regimental History of the 73rd Battalion Royal Highlanders of Canada 1915-1917. We had known that the history existed, and we believed that it was in manuscript form in the Black Watch Archives. It was welcome news that it was finally published. The cost of printing small lots is now affordable, so the Royal Highlanders have decided to test the waters with a limited printing of 200 copies. I already have copies of Fetherstonhaugh’s History of the 13^th Battalion, and Topp’s history of the 42^nd, so this volume would round out my collection of Black Watch histories. Having grown up in the Montreal area, a lot of men that I research ended up with the Highlanders, so this was a welcome addition. The book is only available through the Black Watch web site, and this led to a set of very fortuitous circumstances.

After receiving the eMail from Chris, I immediately went to the Black Watch site to order it. Living in the States, it is difficult to get foreign money orders, so I wanted to pay for it via PayPal, which proved to be, shall we say, challenging. PayPal, apparently only works with certain browsers and versions and none of the ones I had (and running a web site, I have quite a few that I use to test with) would work. Besides, as my wife pointed out, the shipping costs to the States were a tad high, so she suggested that I get a relative to pick it up and send it to me. Somewhat petulant (“but then I’ll have to wait for them to mail it”) I conceded that it made sense. She also pointed out that we were going to be up in the area in another week, but we both knew that we seldom have time to drive into downtown Montreal on our annual whirlwind Christmas visit. I knew that my brother-in-law would readily agree to get it for me, but they were out of town and I figured I’d ask him once we got together over the weekend.

Our annual Christmas trek had been postponed until the week after new Years to accommodate the families various schedules, so Penney and I drove up from Columbus, Ohio to Ottawa the Wednesday after New Years. We spent two days with fiends there, and then headed down to Godmanchester, a small township about 50 km south-west of Montreal. It’s a bit out of the way, but we always stop in Pointe-Claire, in Montreal’s west island, to pick up some Montreal bagels to bring back with us (nothing compares to Montreal bagels). Penney also wanted to do a bit of shopping and on the drive down from Ottawa she suggested that I leave her to do the shopping, and then I could go into town and pick up the book. She called the Black Watch Armory (they say that they will open the Kit Shop by appointment) and was told that they would be happy to open it up for me. I dropped Penney off at a mall in Pointe Claire, drove downtown (it’s been years since I’ve driven in that area) and made my way down to the Armory on Bleury. Cal Kufta, the archivist at the Black Watch Regimental Museum, let me in and we proceeded to have a great chat for the next hour. Cal gave me some background on the book, explaining that it was the publishing costs that had prevented it from being published in 1944, that a very small “proofs” had been published and one was in the Regimental library, along with the original manuscript. With the declining printing costs, they had decided to publish it as it was originally written, but with an updated Nominal Roll. It turns out that Mike Cher had gone through all the Part II’s for the Battalion, and had compiled an updated nominal roll. Having gone through some of the Part II’s, and being very familiar with data extraction and transcription, I can only imagine the work that was involved.

The result is a great addition to any Great War reference library. The narrative gives an almost day-by-day account of the Battalion from its formation until it was broken up after the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The above mentioned Nominal roll makes it indispensible in its own right, and the notes on members of the Battalion after it was broken up were great reading.

All in all, one of the better Regimental histories. In a word (or 2), “Buy it”! You won’t be disappointed. It’s $24 well spent.

Cal also explained that if anyone is having trouble ordering it, either because of the PayPal issue or any other reason, use the form on the website to contact him, or call the Kit shop phone number, and he’ll be happy to help you. Absolutely 1^st class customer service!

I also picked up a Black Watch CD; one of my neighbours used to play Bagpipes with them, but that’s a story for another day.

I was thinking about eMail quite a bit over the last few weeks, mainly because it takes up a lot of my time on a daily basis (here’s where peals of laughter erupt from people that haven’t heard from me for very long time). But it is true. I get about 8,000 email’s a year to my CGWP address, which is about 20% of what I get at work, so in total I’m going through about 120 eMails on a daily basis. Granted a lot of them don’t take a lot of time … I have decided that I don’t want to get rich by helping someone who has secreted money out of <insert name of 3^rd world country here>, so click those are gone. The same for the complaints I get from the Better Business Bureau. The ones I’m referring to are those written by someone who speaks English as a 14^th language and that tell me I really need to click on a very suspicious link to find out what the complaint is. Click – those are gone. They take a bit linger, because I find it humourous to read them. Then there are the ads from various services that want me to buy their products, so they don’t take long to select and delete.

The remaining ones fall into several categories:

1. Problems with the web site. I try to address these pretty quickly (OK, the problem with uploading images dragged on for much too long), and thankfully they are fairly few.
2. People tracing family members. These are pretty common, most are looking for information on how to trace an ancestor’s war experience, but occasionally they want to know a bit more than what is on the attestation papers. One was along the lines of “You say that my great-uncle 4 times removed was married to Jane, but her name was Margaret Jane, and they divorced in 1922. Do you know why?” Sorry, but no I don’t know why. One of my favourites from this category was “I’d like to know more about my great-grandfather. Can you tell me what he did in the war?” That was it, no name provided. The follow up was “Oh, sorry, his name was John Smith, but maybe he used Smythe. I think he may have lived in Ontario.” Humm, not much there to go on.
3. People complaining about the accuracy of the information. Actually most aren’t complaining, they are really helping us build up the accuracy of the data and providing corrections, which are always very much appreciated, but it’s the ones that are somewhat belligerent that stand out. “My great uncle was born in Glyndyfrdwy, not Glyndyford! Everyone knows that there is no town called Glyndyford!” Well, I’m not sure that either the clerk that was trying to write it down on the attestation form knew that, and apparently the person who tried to decipher his handwriting to enter it knew that either.
4. And my favourite, the ones who don’t find a name they are looking for. Most politely provide the information or ask how they can enter it, but a few get quite animated: “How can you say that you have a database when my wife’s 14th cousin 6 times removed isn’t in it? I’m very, very disappointed.” Knowing how hard everyone that volunteers time is working to get names added, I find these hard to answer, or at least answer politely. Occasionally, I get one that ends with something like “… and I know this because my grandmother has a picture of him that was taken in uniform. There is a date of 1944 on it!” Ummm, wrong war.
5.  And then the ones that make it all worthwhile. “Thank you for helping me find more information about my grandfather. My mother knew he was in World War 1, but that was all. Thanks to this wonderful resource we know a bit more. Thank you for commemorating all the men that served, not just the ones that died.”

And that’s really what this is all about: having a place to remember the men and women that served. And thanks to everyone who volunteers and helps the database grow by about 500 new entries, and 300 updated entries every week. Through your efforts this great resource keeps getting better.

It was supposed to be easy! I have known for a while that I would have to make some changes to the site to upgrade the infrastructure, because it was getting harder to maintain. I needed something that mirrored what I could test against.

So I did my research … really, I did. I tested the site on my local hardware against a similar set of hardware and didn’t have any problems. So I figured I was all ready to go. The process is automated on the site where the Canadian Great War Project is hosted, and it said “This process will take approximately 30 minutes. Larger sites may take longer.”

So I figured, well if it takes 4 times as long, then it’s only a couple of hours. So I set my alarm, and got out of bed at 3:00 AM, statistically the time with the least access, and started the upgrade.

… 2 hours later – site was still down.

… 4 hours later – same

… 12 hours later – I’m starting to get concerned

… 24 hours later – On the phone with tech support. Oops, the automated process stalled and left everything in limbo. “Don’t worry, we’ll straighten it out.”

So they reset things, and the site was back to its original state. Then a bit later today, they restarted the upgrade, and it worked smoothly. Except for that teeny little sentence, buried in the documentation “Applications may need to be modified after the upgrade.”

So the site came back on-line, and all kinds of error started to appear. There was a slight configuration difference between the old hardware and the new. Thankfully the error was easy to understand, and not too hard to fix … except that I had to change over 1,000 files and re-upload them to the server. My wife came in to ask me a question while I was desperately trying to get everything uploaded again. She quickly left saying “A leeeetttttlllllle bit stressed, are we?” Even Bodey Dawg took one look at me and scooted towards the other end of the room, sitting with his paws over his head!

But it all seems to be back running now.

Finally.

Some 40 hours after I started that “1/2 hour little task.”

I have a bit more checking to do, but I think I’ve got most everything running correctly. If anyone notices anything strange, please let me know.

This upgrade only affected the web pages that render the data, not the data itself, so nothing got lost … other than 40 hours.

Everyone has my sincerest apologies.

marc

In August, 2008, Marika Pirie and I contacted Veterans Affairs Canada about a soldier that we believed overlooked in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial. 

Marika Pirie has, over the years, taken photo's of a number of soldier graves from the Veterans' plot at Prospect Cemetery (Toronto) and from  Hamilton Cemetery in Hamilton, Ontario. Some of these men may have died shortly after the war from non war-related causes. Private Laird stood out from the rest, though. He sailed with the First Contingent,  attached to the number 2 field ambulance, Canadian Army Medical Corps. His attestation papers are stamped "INVALIDED TO CANADA FOR FURTHER MEDICAL TREATMENT." from Ontario Military Hospital, in Orpington, Kent, England. He died in 1918 at the age of 23.

There is a photo of his grave marker (not a CWGC marker) here:

We had no information concerning his cause of death,  but given his age, and the fact that he was seriously enough to be repatriated from England, we thought that he should be considered for inclusion. The kind and co-operative folks at VAC tracked down what they needed, and Private Laird is now commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

Thank you, Marika, for pulling all of the information needed to make the case, and to the folks at VAC for making this happen.

Have you ever wondered why most of the entries in Library and Archives Canada (LAC)  Soldiers of the First World War – CEF database have attestation papers, but roughly 8% do not? I know that I have, and I’ve also wondering if LAC would ever get around to adding them. I knew that they existed; I had ordered complete copies of some records from LAC for soldiers with no on-line papers, and the attestation papers were included in the packet. So why weren’t they on-line?

The answer comes from Arnie Kay, a former LAC employee who now does freelance record searches.

According to Arnie, some years ago the Military “vetted the CEF files and removed various non historical docs from these files.  They also removed all the surplus Attestation copies and put then into large binders.  You guessed it.  When they did the Attestation project they used the binders and of course there were many of the CEF files that only had one copy and this is the reason why so many gaps in the Attestation data base.   They have no intention of trying to resolve this oversight.

At least we now know why they are missing, and that LAC will not be attempting to fix this at any point in the future.

Note: if you are want to track down more information on any Canadian who served in the Great War, check with Arnie kay. He has very reasonable rates and a sterling reputation as a researcher.