Canada

Horace Gibson Leitch Campbell – Lest We Forget – 8 June 1916

This was originally posted in November 2010.

Horace Gibson Leitch Campbell was my Great Grand Uncle. I have written about him before in a previous post. Horace and a few of his brothers immigrated to British Columbia in 1909. Horace and Frank went to Campbell River and worked with the power company while Harold worked in Vancouver.

Horace joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 9 November 1914 and he was part of the Active Militia at the time. He was 27 years 275 days old and his occupation was listed as surveyor.

He was part of the C.E.F., 29th Vancouver Battalion, Second Canadian Contingent, 6th Brigade, Canadian Infantry, British Columbia Regiment. This regiment did a lot of fighting in and around the French and Flemish border.

On 23 Jan 1915 he was promoted to Lance Corporal. On the 20th of May 1915 he embarked for England. He started his trench warfare training on the 25th of February 1916 and finished on the 3rd of March 1916. The Trench Warfare School took place “in the field.”

Horace received the rank of Corporal on the 15th of March 1916 and on May 27th was granted eight days leave. During his leave he went back to visit his family in Glasgow and help his niece, Norah, celebrate her eighth birthday. He left on June 4th to return to the front.

On the 8th of June 1916 Horace Gibson Leitch Campbell was killed in action. His military file does not say where he was killed. A little research has shown that he was probably killed at the Battle of Mount Sorrel in Belgium. This battle was fought from June 2-13, 1916.

Horace was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Horace was the subject of many photographs during his leave. There is one photo of Horace and his brother Edwin.

Janet Waddell Ross Campbell was sent a photograph of Horace’s final resting place in Belgium at the Reninghelst New Military Cemetery.

On Armistice Day everyone went to church. There is a photograph of a floral cross. On the back of this photograph is written “Armistice Day 11th Nov Camphill Church (Glasgow) Memorial – Horace’s wooden cross, forms the foundation of the floral one” You can see that the table the cross is standing on is draped with the Union Jack.

The Campbell’s were quite prolific poets. At Christmas in 1915 while on the battlefield in Belgium Horace wrote a letter home which, as was his practice, included a poem. This poem was read during the Armistice Day service and was printed on Horace’s memorial card.

Oh, lead us not home with the flourish of trumpets
With flags and plumes waving and cheers in the air;
Oh, call us not heroes nor crown us with laurels,
But remember the cost — see the tears everywhere.

Give a thought to the men that lie dead over yonder,
With “Unknown” on a rude cross of wood where they lie.
See that woman in black — whose loved ones sleep with them
As sadly she watches their comrades go by.

But think kindly of others and quietly welcome
Your loved ones, your brothers, your husbands, your sons;
And think of the morrow of tears, and the sorrow
Of thousands who have lost their only dear ones.

Six months after he wrote the poem Horace would be gone.

Lest We Forget

©2011 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved

“Dieppe – Blue Beach – Every Man Remembered”

Last week I presented a lecture at Orillia Public Library. When talking to Jayne Turvey, who had invited me to speak, she told me about her latest military history project.

Jayne is trying to find descendants of “every soldier from The Royal Regiment of Canada who landed at Dieppe on August 19, 1942.” Their goal is to “create a memorial book for the 75th Anniversary of Dieppe Raid (August 19, 2017).”

They are looking for stories, photographs and anything else that can be found to remember every man involved.

“Dieppe – Blue Beach Every Man Remembered The Royal Regiment of Canada”
“Dieppe – Blue Beach Every Man Remembered The Royal Regiment of Canada”

You can read more on their website “Dieppe – Blue Beach Every Man Remembered The Royal Regiment of Canada” and they have a Facebook page “Dieppe Blue Beach Every Man Remembered.”

“Dieppe Blue Beach Every Man Remembered”
“Dieppe Blue Beach Every Man Remembered”

 

If a member of your family served and fought at Dieppe then please contact Jayne to help her with her goal “Every Man Remembered.”

 

© 2016 Blair Archival Research – All Rights Reserved

 

Héritage – Canadian Record Resource

The Library and Archives Canada blog had a post called “Newly digitized microfilms on the Héritage portal.” There is a long list of fonds and records that have been added to the Héritage website.

Heritage

They have already got 255 records on the website. Some of these records may seem unrelated to family history but go in and play with the website and see what you can find. I did a search for a town and found a lot of references to diamond wedding anniversaries and requests from the King for acknowledgement letters.

You can do a search for a term or word and when the results come up you don’t have to go into each collection. You can click on the image number and be taken directly to the image.

They have five featured collections which include: Genealogy; Aboriginal History; Government Documents; Military History and Landmark Papers.

There are 65 results in the Genealogy Collection; 30 in the Military History; 11 in Aboriginal History; 108 in Government Documents and 123 in Landmark Papers.

They have a Catalogue page and it provides you with some information. The most important note is that the number of films in the complete collection is more than 35,000 but the number of films described in the catalogue is 19,941.

It has each of the collections in the featured collections listed. Under Genealogy Collection it provides you with a description of the record, the number of films, the number of pages by the 1000s (if 15 is listed then it is 15,000 pages), whether or not it has significant genealogical content and Mikan number. It would be nice if they had the titles hyperlinked so that they would be easier to find.

There are 41 different parish registers listed including a few Catholic ones from the United States. One of the new parish registers listed in the LAC blog post is “Parish registers: Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia.” A search was done for “Parish Register” and there were five results with only one that was for an actual register. A search for “Parish Registers” provided nine results, two of which had Parish registers in the title.

One of the results was for “Ste-Anne de Restigouche P.Q. Parish register” but it is under the title “Parish Registers Nova Scotia: C-1449.” Now Ste-Anne is in Quebec and not Nova Scotia and the About Section does not clear this up. I went into the digital images and the cover page says Registre de la pariosse Ste-Anne de Restigouche, 1759-95” and it has “N.S. Church Records – Acadia – Divers Registres 1755-1799” so this is where Nova Scotia came from.

In the About Section it says that there are 177 pages for Ste-Anne and on the cover page of the microfilm it says that Ste-Anne has 158 pages and N.S. Church Records has 174 pages. The very first page of the registers is for Ste-Anne and the last page (page 177) is for N.S. Church Records, so they must all be included. The images are double pages. Why is N.S. Church Records in the title and not in the About Section of the record description? Don’t just rely on the record descriptions go into the microfilm and see for yourself what may be on it.

One of the parish records collections was “General Index to the Public Archives of Canada: H-1317” and here you get an index card to a parish register of Lochwinnoch Presbyterian Church in Ontario. This can be very useful in determining what is available for your area of research.

In a way this is a mix of old research and online research. You have to search the microfilm to find out what is on it but you can do it on your computer at home.

©2014 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved