William Wilson
My great-grandmother - the one I'm named after - has a brother named William. Until today all I knew about him was his birth date, along with this note from my mom:
In the conversation (a 1983 phone call to her mom's cousin Florrie McConaghy) she mentioned Uncle Willie died in Army in England.
Today I decided to see if I could use that clue to find any more information. It took some digging, but I successfully found his wife and children. So, so exciting!
First I found a William Wilson family in the 1911 England Census:
William Wilson, 36, born Castlederg, Tyrone, Ireland
Annie Wilson, 31, born Castlerock, Derry, Ireland
Florence Evelyn Wilson, 9, born Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
John Wilson, 7, born Hounslow, Middlesex, England
Annie Wilson, 5, born Hounslow, Middlesex, England
That birthplace of Castlederg looked very promising; that's where my great-grandmother was born. However, William Wilson is a fairly common name, so I needed more proof. I found it in the British Army WWI Pension Records, on an ancestry.com search for Florence Evelyn Wilson:
If you look carefully, you'll see that the original next of kin were his parents, William and Jane. His brothers were also listed. Then they're crossed out and his wife and children are named as next of kin. These match perfectly with the family members in the census and provide the link to the family in Ireland.
There's more work to be done, but I just had to share my discovery. Now it's time to update FamilySearch!
Note: According to this military record, Uncle Willie served in the Soudan [Sudan] Campaign of 1898, and received a sword wound on the left side. I'm not too familiar with Great Britain's military action of a century ago, but when doing a Google search on the campaign, I found an online book detailing it. Just in case you or I may ever want to read it, here it is: Khartoum Campaign 1898.
In the conversation (a 1983 phone call to her mom's cousin Florrie McConaghy) she mentioned Uncle Willie died in Army in England.
Today I decided to see if I could use that clue to find any more information. It took some digging, but I successfully found his wife and children. So, so exciting!
First I found a William Wilson family in the 1911 England Census:
William Wilson, 36, born Castlederg, Tyrone, Ireland
Annie Wilson, 31, born Castlerock, Derry, Ireland
Florence Evelyn Wilson, 9, born Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
John Wilson, 7, born Hounslow, Middlesex, England
Annie Wilson, 5, born Hounslow, Middlesex, England
That birthplace of Castlederg looked very promising; that's where my great-grandmother was born. However, William Wilson is a fairly common name, so I needed more proof. I found it in the British Army WWI Pension Records, on an ancestry.com search for Florence Evelyn Wilson:
If you look carefully, you'll see that the original next of kin were his parents, William and Jane. His brothers were also listed. Then they're crossed out and his wife and children are named as next of kin. These match perfectly with the family members in the census and provide the link to the family in Ireland.
There's more work to be done, but I just had to share my discovery. Now it's time to update FamilySearch!
Note: According to this military record, Uncle Willie served in the Soudan [Sudan] Campaign of 1898, and received a sword wound on the left side. I'm not too familiar with Great Britain's military action of a century ago, but when doing a Google search on the campaign, I found an online book detailing it. Just in case you or I may ever want to read it, here it is: Khartoum Campaign 1898.
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