De Ruvignys, looking for Irishmen

[museumtom]

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.

[Ice Tiger]

Well done Tom

A reminder for me that I need to find the many hours needed to complete my own much smaller memorial project.

Andy

[museumtom]

Thanks Andy, the thing about doing something like this,the hardest part of the project is just starting. Once you begin, it will happen, but the first step is the most difficult.

Kind regards.

Tom.