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Wednesday 19 September 2018

When is a Tytheridge not a Tytheridge?


Several years ago, I was very excited when I found the name of Ernest Burrowes Tytheridge, listed under "Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914 – 1918" on the Ancestry website.
The details were transcribed from the original and read:
Name : Ernest Burrowes Tytheridge
Place of Birth:  Islington, Middlesex
Date of Death:  26 October 1914
Place of Death: France and Flanders
Enlistment Place:  London
Rank:  Rifleman
Regiment Royal Irish Rifles, 2nd Battalion
Regimental Number:  6486
Killed in Action

I followed my golden rule - "look at the original document and don’t believe any transcription". I found the image of an original document “Ireland, Casualties of World War I, 1914-1922” which contained the names of Irish men who fell in the Great War. The picture showed the page which remembered Ernest, and it confirmed the details of the previous transcription. The book of remembrance was beautiful, published in 1923 with the printed word surrounded by the most amazing ornate border designed by the artist, engraver and stain-glass window designer Harry Clarke.

My discovery of Ernest Burrowes Tytheridge was interesting because I didn’t know who Ernest Tytheridge was. So, began my search for Ernest. I looked for a birth- no Ernest Tytheridge, no Ernest Burrowes. I searched on the 1911 no sign of Ernest. I tried all possible spelling variations of the surname Tytheridge and found nothing. I looked in vain for a connection between Tytheridge and Burrowes but none was found. For several years I had labelled Ernest as "a problem to sort" and from time to time I would try some different search to try to find out who he was.

Recently I was updating my military records for our website, where I had Ernest Burrowes Tytheridge listed among the war dead. I realised that I had no medal card for Ernest, that seemed strange but I thought perhaps it was because he was in an Irish Regiment. As I was cross checking my data with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission I realised that Ernest was not listed there either. The alarm bells rang something was not right. It was at this point I had a brainwave - l entered just the Christian names “Ernest Burrowes” into the Commonwealth War Grave Commission website and the answer to the mystery was revealed. The entry read
“Ernest Burrowes TYTHERLEIGH”
Ernest was not a Tytheridge but a Tytherleigh !

To confirm this new discovery, I searched the surname Tytherleigh and found his medal card, his birth in 1884 Islington, his marriage to Georgina in 1910 and found the couple on the 1911 census in Finchley. So my Ernest Burrowes Tytheridge was not Tytheridge after all, the error had been made on the original Roll of Honour  just after World War 1 and then copied to another document.

I always pride myself on not making assumptions but as shown above even when you are careful things can go wrong. When doing genealogy research try to remember:
  • Always try to see the original document – don’t believe transcriptions 
  • Always try to cross reference your fact from two different sources
  • If something doesn’t seem right don’t blindly accept it; question it. (I should have had a warning alarm ringing and asked why no birth? why no medal card? why not in CWG site?)

 I have now updated our website to remove all traces of Ernest, the Tytheridge who was a Tytherleigh, from both the Military Records Roll of Honour and from the list of Soldiers whoserved in WW1.


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